


Singing Silver

by FledglingQueen



Series: By Any Other Name [1]
Category: Spinning Silver - Naomi Novik, The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Emotional Hurt, Fae & Fairies, Hurt Jaskier | Dandelion, I Don't Even Know, Jaskier | Dandelion Has a Past, M/M, Magical!Jaskier, Pining, Staryk, Temporary Character Death, Unreliable Narrator
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-06
Updated: 2020-08-31
Packaged: 2021-03-02 21:35:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 16
Words: 49,380
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24033658
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FledglingQueen/pseuds/FledglingQueen
Summary: Jaskier had not noticed that he was falling apart until he found himself looking into Geralt’s golden eyes and realized that he had no defense.“I don’t play for the dead,” he said. Geralt’s gaze held him fast. His heart sped and he wondered if the Witcher could hear it. He wondered if Geralt knew the exhilaration and terror that burned the dread away like flame to oil. “Not anymore.”
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg, Jaskier | Dandelion & Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg
Series: By Any Other Name [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2090373
Comments: 662
Kudos: 1759





	1. Forebode

**Author's Note:**

> I will be basing this mostly of the Witcher show and maybe a little bit off the games. Knowledge of Spinning Silver will enhance your reading experience but is by no means required. Tags may be updated as the story develops. Rated Teen for future reasons - TW included in the notes (none for this chapter!).
> 
> Ask me if I know what I'm doing. Go on, I dare you.

Jaskier had stopped complaining about being tired nearly three hours ago. From the slope of Geralt’s shoulders, he guessed the Witcher was nearly as exhausted. Besides, it was hard enough to focus on the road in front of him, let alone attempting to muster his usual levels of coherent eloquence.

“A few more miles,” Geralt grunted, slowing Roach for a moment to glance back at Jaskier. “Maybe there’ll be a contract.”

There had not been any contracts for the past three villages. This far south, work for Witchers was scarce. Work for bards was good, but Geralt didn’t like to stay in towns long enough to capitalize on Jaskier’s advantage. Jaskier could hardly hold his reluctance against him, though he did not-so-quietly mourn the absence of decent ale.

“Maybe a spectre,” he mustered after a moment. “That’d be a nice change of pace.”

Geralt urged Roach forward again. “Hmm.”

“Or a werewolf. Very thematic. The White Wolf and the Werewolf - or is that too alliterative?”

This time the grunt sounded distinctly disapproving.

Jaskier sighed and tugged at the strap of his lute. “I agree, it needs work. Perhaps a wyvern?”

“Not the right season,” Geralt supplied after a moment. “They’re only aggressive in the early spring when they’re looking for a mate.”

Jaskier managed a stumbling commentary on the nature of aggression as an expression of love as they dragged themselves the last few miles. Geralt bore this with ill grace but mercifully did not try to urge Roach to leave Jaskier behind. As Belhaven came into view, Jaskier magnanimously turned his musing toward food and ale and relished the way Geralt’s frown eased ever so slightly.

That relief did not last.

The town was unusually quiet. A few shop windows were draped with black and even the buskers seemed to be keeping a respectful hush. The hairs on the back of Jaskier’s neck rose and he fought back a shudder, pressing as close to Geralt’s knee as Roach would allow.

Geralt looked down at him with heady concern and Jaskier basked in his protective attention for the few minutes it lasted. Of course, when the cause for his unease failed to make itself apparent, Geralt merely kicked him lightly in the shoulder and moved on.

There were three inns in Belhaven. The first was full, supposedly. Jaskier had his suspicions, peering around the disgruntled innkeep at the empty stables and quiet tavern. The bastard even dared spit at Geralt’s feet as they turned to go.

Had Jaskier been only slightly more awake, he would have landed a punch before Geralt reeled him back and sent him stumbling down the road, still cursing southern bigotry.

The second inn had been damaged in a fire a fortnight past. This seemed both deeply tragic and completely fitting with their ongoing fortunes, Jaskier reflected sadly as he gazed at the smoke-damaged sign advertising the best Toussaint Red north of Toussaint.

At the third inn, they were greeted by a big, cheerful woman who met Geralt’s eye with only the slightest twitch of anxiety. Jaskier decided immediately that he liked her very much.

“A room, good woman!” He cried, swinging his lute around and plucking a quick melody as he sketched a gallant bow. “And food for my friend and I, if the price is right.”

She laughed at his antics and clapped her hands as he finished his impromptu song. “Well done, sir, and welcome. We’ve a room free if you don’t mind sharing, and food enough for even your hearty northern appetites! Thirty orens, including stabling for the horse.”

“Thirty--” Jaskier choked, and glanced helplessly at Geralt.

Geralt frowned and Roach heaved a heavy sigh, probably sensing his frustration. “Steep price,” he pointed out. “And work’s been bad.”

Hopes of a warm bed, a bath, and a pint of ale were rapidly dwindling. Jaskier strummed his lute again. “I am a bard of some repute, madam! Toss a Coin? That’s mine. And there’s --”

“I’ve heard of you,” the woman cut in. “I’ve no need for a bard in my taproom. The regulars spend enough without incentive, and there’s no room beside. My cousin, though, he’s been organizing the funeral for the alderman.”

Deep in his chest, somewhere just below his lungs, a knot of dread worked itself free and began to make its slow, uncomfortable way to the pit of his stomach.

“Ah.” He began nervously adjusting his lute strap.

She ignored him. “Horribly sad affair. Nothing for you, Witcher. Just a runaway horse after a drunken night with his mistress. There’s none in Belhaven who could do a proper celebration justice, so I’ll make you a deal. Sing for the alderman’s service, and your night is free. Food is still three oren a piece, but I’m sure your tips will cover it.”

Jaskier cleared his throat and shifted back slightly. “Ah, well, I’m afraid funerals aren’t quite my usual fare. Terrible tips, in fact. And I’m absolutely rubbish at dirges.”

“Jaskier,” Geralt growled.

_Fuck_ , Jaskier thought wholeheartedly. _Goodbye, ale. Goodbye, bath. And goodbye, escape from Geralt’s wrath._

“I’m sorry, madam, but I simply cannot accept. It would not do justice to my craft. Are you quite certain I can’t tempt you to allow a little jig to liven up your taproom?”

The woman’s cheer dwindled rapidly. She glared up at the two of them and turned to go back inside. “Town’s in mourning,” she bit out, “doubt merrymaking would do a bit of good.”

As the door swung shut behind her, Geralt reached out and biffed Jaskier’s shoulder. He flinched, rubbing at the spot with a frown. It had still been a little sore from the kick earlier, not that he'd ever admit it, and it throbbed doubly now. Doubtless he'd come out horridly bruised.

“Geralt!”

“You know dirges,” Geralt growled, turning to mount Roach. “You sing them all the blessed time.”

“Not at funerals!” Jaskier protested, “All those people crying? I can’t stand it. Gives me hives.”

Roach was walking away, just slightly faster than the pace Geralt normally kept her to on the road. Oh dear, he really was upset.

Jaskier hopped forward into an awkward trot, wincing at the pull on his poor, blistered feet. “Slow down, Geralt. Geralt?”

He didn’t slow. Jasker eventually lost his breath and fell behind, breaking into a trot only as often as he had to in order to keep Roach’s tail in sight. They made their way out of the town and back out to the woods.

Jaskier caught up just as Geralt was clearing ground for a fire. He threw himself down at the base of a tree and leaned back, panting.

“Was the canter at the end truly necessary, Geralt?”

Geralt paused, glaring at the ground between his feet. Finally, he turned and strode out into the woods. Presumably for firewood, but who really knew with Geralt.

Jaskier sighed and heaved himself up. Maybe if Geralt came back to Roach curried and gleaming, he’d be in a better mood.

A single, stringy rabbit was turning slowly on the spit before either of the men made another attempt at conversation. In truth, Jaskier hadn’t much of an appetite. The dread he’d felt when the woman had first mentioned the dead alderman hadn’t dissipated as he’d hoped. It boiled his blood with groundless foreboding and he could barely hold back shivers. He’d stuck his toes nearly in the coals just on the off chance Geralt would think he was merely cold and ignore his behavior.

“You’ve never minded crying before,” Geralt said at last. His eyes, when Jaskier glanced at him, were still locked on the rabbit. “You said crying women always like a friendly shoulder.”

"They do,” Jaskier said. And immediately wanted to kick himself. _Not helpful,_ he thought bitterly. “It’s just… something about funerals.”

Silence, and then: “thirty miles to the next village.”

“I think I shall begin a tally of Geralt of Rivia’s non sequiturs. Perhaps write a song solely composed of them. It would be an interesting exercise.”

“I just meant,” Geralt’s eyes flicked up to meet Jaskier’s and darted away. “That’s our last chance at your ‘civilization’ for some time.”

Jaskier scoffed, waited for the muscle in Geralt’s cheek to jump, then scoffed again. “I lay no claim to _that_ civilization, dear Witcher. I’ve half a mind to go back there and start some kind of fisticuffs with that first weasley innkeep for our right to a room. Though I’m sure we’d pick up all manner of nasty pests from an inn like that. Say, Geralt, can Witchers get fleas? Or would I be the only miserable bastard in that situation?”

The corner of Geralt’s mouth quirked up. He tilted his chin away, but Jaskier could see the way the skin of his cheek pulled slightly in the firelight. “Hmm.”

“Anyway,” he continued blithely, “the continued hardship shall only make our bed in Toussaint that much sweeter!”

“Tell that to Roach.”

Jaskier strummed a lazy riff on his lute and laughed when Roach’s ears flicked back meanly at the noise. “I shall apologize to the beautiful and cantankerous lady in the morning. Look on the bright side, perhaps at this rate I shall finally go noseblind. It has only ever been a matter of time.”

“We just bathed.”

“We just waded through a river. It is _not_ the same thing.”

At this, Geralt looked up with true amusement. “Jaskier, you washed our clothes. With soap.”

“Saddle soap and desperation, dear Witcher. And only your clothes. My silks would be utterly ruined by the lather.”

“So you shouldn’t wear silks.”

“Now, now! You shan’t convert me. I have survived ten years with you on the Path in silks, I am not going to stop now. Half the coin I make in these backwater towns is in sharing the latest court fashion.”

Jaskier had cheered slightly now, fallen back into the routine of banter. He still shivered slightly and ached a little, but it was less of an alien feeling when it mingled with the familiar shudder of meeting Geralt’s eyes over the fire.

Which, of course, was when Geralt ruined it.

“You played at the memorial service for Hochebuz. People wept.”

The dread returned with a vengeance. “I wrote the Ballad of Hochebuz; I could hardly turn down the invitation. And anyway, you weren’t there, how do you know people wept?”

Geralt didn’t dignify that dig with a response, which was probably for the better. “So you’ll play at memorials, but not funerals.”

“Drop it, Geralt. Please.”

“Jaskier.”

He was always very acutely aware of his name. The way it felt in other people’s mouths when they spoke. The rhythms and tones borrowed from context and emotion could be quite heady in the right circumstances. In all the time he’d borne his chosen name, however, Jaskier had never known someone to imbue those two syllables with such rich meaning.

Here, for example, Geralt was really saying, ‘you are hiding something that affects our continued relationship and it has now inconvenienced me. Pray share this knowledge before I become truly irritated and retreat to monosyllabic communication before gracelessly parting ways at the next crossroad. There we shall bid farewell until I forget how upset I am and allow you to finally catch up to me some three years down the road. We will never speak of this again, but I shall hold resentment in my heart of hearts forevermore.’

Jaskier was growing very accomplished in his translations these days.

He pulled his lute strap off and set the precious instrument aside, moving slowly and mentally attempting to gather up the pieces of himself that seemed to skitter away like ice chips on marble. He had not noticed that he was falling apart until he found himself looking into Geralt’s golden eyes and realized that he had no defense.

“I don’t play for the dead,” he said. Geralt’s gaze held him fast. His heart sped and he wondered if the Witcher could hear it. He wondered if Geralt knew the exhilaration and terror that burned the dread away like flame to oil. “Not anymore.”

Geralt opened his mouth to respond, but Jaskier’s courage failed. He pulled himself to his feet and stumbled out of the clearing. He didn’t go far, just far enough that the fire was a mere glimmer between the trees.

He had a piss while he was out there, then perched on a fallen tree to watch the stars. The star gazing wasn’t as good in the south as it was north of Kestrel Mountains, he was almost positive. The skies were muggier and the cities brighter. The only redeeming aspect to the southern continent was the wine, of which he currently had none. 

If he had to be miserable and surrounded by whoresons who wouldn’t hesitate to kick a gift Witcher in the mouth - or whatever that phrase was meant to be - at least he should be allowed some kind of indulgence. Surely resigning himself to following Geralt like a lovestruck fool for the rest of his life didn't mean he must live completely like a monk.

Geralt had banked the fire and curled up in his bedroll by the time Jaskier was tired enough to return. Jaskier’s bedroll - which he had left next to his lute - was spread out between Geralt and the fire, tucked up next to Geralt’s back.

Jaskier smiled and tugged off his boots, sliding in with a sigh. Geralt’s bulk was a comfortable pressure against his back and he settled into it with guilty relief.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered, half-hoping that Geralt was asleep. “I know you’re tired, too.”

Geralt shifted and Jaskier found himself pulled abruptly up against the Witcher’s chest.

“Go to sleep, Jaskier.”

“Right, yes. I’ll just - sleep. Good night, Geralt.”


	2. Breaking Ice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It felt as though the ice had reached through skin, muscle, and bone to burrow deep inside his heart. The air itself had turned to water. Thick and syrupy with cold, and bitter with anticipation. 
> 
> “Stop,” Julian whispered. Not more than a breath caught between his teeth. She didn’t hear him, or else ignored him.
> 
> “-But I heard him singing, and it felt like he’d tied a rope around my wrist. I couldn’t see it, but I knew.” Her eyes met his, blue to blue, like the winter sky. “The door was a lie. But the song was you. So I followed you back.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: Please see end of chapter notes

Lettenhove was a nowhere place in a shithole valley, surrounded by dirt poor farms and populated by filthy, ignorant people. This, Julian knew well. He did not, however, allow the knowledge to prevent him from enjoying the dubious society that presented itself to him.

“I’m just saying: if your father finds out that you seduced another traveling minstrel, he’ll have your hide,” Albin pointed out reasonably. He was always reasonable. It was incredibly frustrating.

Julian flicked a honeyed chestnut at his friend and grinned when it stuck firmly to Albin’s collar. “He won’t find out from me,” he said cheerfully, “and Martyn left this morning. I honestly don’t know how he had the energy, after his performance last night.”

“Gross,” Zofia muttered from the bank where she was still fumbling with her laces. 

Julian sighed and tucked his chestnuts into his pocket, crouching to help his sister with her skates. “Don’t be a baby,” he warned. “Or I really will take you back to Mother and leave you with your etiquette tutor.”

She waited until he’d helped her to her feet before sticking her tongue out and skating away. Julian glared, fond and annoyed, and followed at a leisurely glide.

“I thought your mother approved your request for music lessons,” Albin said as he fell into step at Julian’s side. “Or did something happen to change her mind?”

“Oh, she approved. We now have a tutor well-versed in the harp, the lute, the viol, and the gittern. She says I have a gift.”

“So?”

“So all I’m allowed to play are boring old dirges and movements composed centuries ago. There’s no spark in her music, Albin! I want to play songs that bring people to life - that make them sing and dance! Instead I’m stuck with a horrid hag that whips my knuckles with a switch when I chance a jig.”

Albin knocked their shoulders together gently, “so you seduce traveling minstrels?”

“And count myself glad to do so,” Julian confirmed, returning the gesture. “Someday I’ll be one of them, you just wait.”

“Viscounts can’t be minstrels.”

“Zofia can be a Viscountess. Or Mother will have another son and I’ll give Father an excuse to disown me.”

“Well, I hope you don’t leave too quickly.”

Julian perked up at the masked eagerness in Albin’s voice. He whirled and grabbed his friend’s shoulders, pulling them both to a halt. “You did it, then? You finally asked?”

“Her father gave his blessing. The handfasting will be after the first planting of Spring.”

Albin laughed as Julian spun them around, whooping. The last of the honeyed chestnuts flung across the ice as they clung to each other to stay upright. “I told you, I told you Oliwia would talk him ‘round! What did I say?”

“Yes, yes,” Albin muttered amiably, dodging Julian’s efforts to knock his hat askew. “You’ll sing at our wedding then?”

Julian froze. His hands fluttered at his chest and he felt the heat of a childish flush burning in his cheeks. “Oh,” he gasped, “you - you’d want me to sing?”

“Of course I want you to sing. Oliwia deserves the best of everything, and that includes your gifted entertainment.”

At that, nothing would do but for Julian to tackle Albin to the ice. They rolled about for a few minutes, laughing and attempting to stuff handfuls of snow down the collars of their tunics. When Julian finally yelped for mercy, Albin rolled off and they lay shoulder-to-shoulder in panting silence.

“I’ll compose you a song,” Julian decided happily. “A love song, just for the two of you.” He hummed a few notes - quick enough to dance to - and sang softly, “When birds do sing, hey ding a ding ding, sweet lovers love the Spring.”*

Albin punched his shoulder, flushing lightly.

The crack of ice and Zofia’s shriek cut the chill air like a blade. The two young men scrambled to their feet, skates scraping for purchase. 

“There,” Albin gasped, pushing Julian ahead of him, “under the willow. She went too near the roots.”

Julian didn’t waste the breath to curse. His entire world narrowed to the shadowed water where his sister’s flailing hands had disappeared beneath the ice and his legs moved automatically to drive him forward at reckless speeds. She should have known better. He should have known better, too. 

Bile filled his throat as he threw himself to his stomach, nearly skidding into the hole Zofia had made near the tangled willow’s roots. He sank his arms into the freezing water, dipping to the shoulder and casting desperately for her hair, cloak, dress, anything.

“My legs,” he gasped, twisting to lift his head above the waves he had made. “Albin, my legs.”

Albin’s hands were brands on Julian’s calves, grasping hard enough to bruise.

Julian pushed forward again, his entire head sinking into the water as he stretched his hands beneath the ice. He felt a crack beneath his chest and Albin’s hands convulsed as the thin ice crumbled away and Julian fell still further into the water. The sudden weight nearly pulled them both down entirely, but Albin dug in.

His hands were nearly too numb to feel when something softer than pondweed brushed the back of his hand. Julian twisted, winding it around his wrist and pulling until he could grasp Zofia’s head firmly by the roots of her hair.

He convulsed, twisting until he broke above the surface. “Pull--” he choked, dipping back in. 

Albin pulled. When Julian’s hips were back fully on the solid ice, he reached a shaking arm down and wrapped it beneath Zofia’s armpits, heaving her up with him.

Her lips were so blue they looked near black. 

Albin stared at her, horrified. “My god,” he whispered, “my god.”

“Ch-ch-chest comp-compressions,” Julian gasped. “Must’ve brea-breathed the water.” He didn’t wait for Albin. His hands were already on his sister’s chest - so small, his hand could nearly span her shoulders - pushing briskly to the rhythm of the clogging song his nurse had taught him as a child.

Albin stripped his cloak and began rubbing Zofia’s arms and legs as Julian worked, trying desperately to dry the frigid skin.

Julian no longer felt the cold when Albin sat back. “Julian,” he whispered, watching as his friend counted compressions through numb lips. “Julian, we need to get help.” 

He didn’t look frantic. Only bleak and shocked.

Julian snarled at him without looking up. “Then go,” he bit out, “leave.”

Albin stayed. Julian’s compressions slowed, and stopped. His shoulders and back ached distantly beneath the numbness and twilight had begun to drag silver-blue darkness across the clear sky.

He wanted to cry. The grief was there, he thought, but it did not yet have the weight behind it to release the dam. His sister’s lips were dark and waxy, but her eyes were closed as if in sleep.

A hand that shook with more than cold stretched out and pushed a tangled lock of hair behind her ear. Julian recognized it as his own, but he could not feel it. He thought that probably wasn’t good.

“From -” his voice cracked and he coughed harshly,

“from the water-lilies slow uprises  
The still vast face of all the life I know,  
Changed now, and full of wonders and surprises,  
With fire in eyes that once were glazed with snow.

“Fair now the brows -” **

Zofia spasmed beneath his palm. He jerked his hand back and she twisted, vomiting pond water across his lap. 

Albin yelped, falling back in an ungainly heap. His cheeks were wet with sweat and tears that he now hurried to wipe away.

Julian snatched up Albin’s cloak and wrapped it quickly around Zofia’s shoulders. “Albin,” he hissed. “My father.”

He didn’t see if Albin obeyed. Every ounce of his attention was focused on his little sister, shivering and pale in his arms.

“I hea-heard, I heard you,” Zofia choked, fingers digging into Julian’s soaked tunic, “singing.”

For perhaps the first time in his sixteen years of life, Julian felt lost for words. He pulled Zofia closer and tucked the edges of Albin’s cloak between them. They should get up, he knew. He should pull Zofia up and skate to the edge of the lake so that Father and the village men would not have to cross the ice. 

He didn’t move.

She buried her icy nose into his collarbone. “Settles it.”

“What?”

“Mama will have to let you study any music you want, now,” she stuttered, violent shivers wracking her in waves.

The heat of his tears was shocking enough to be painful. “I don’t care about any of that,” he promised. “I don’t care about the music tutor, buttercup, just breathe for me.”

“I am,” she said. 

Finally, before he truly did not have the strength to do it, Julian stood and pulled Zofia up into his arms. She hissed as the movement exposed her to the breeze.

He could barely skate in a straight line. Normally, he’d worry about mockery for his inelegance, but Zofia’s eyes were closed. Julian jostled her, just to hear her grumble, and hummed a silly cradle song about a rabbit and a faery - Zofia’s favorite when she was a baby - as he pushed them toward the bank and the distant sound of horses echoing in the valley.

They hadn’t even made it off the ice before the Viscount was there. He leapt from his horse and strode out to them with purpose just short of fury. Julian braced himself for shouting, perhaps even a blow, but the Viscount merely pulled both his children into a crushing embrace.

“Zofia. Julian. Thank all the gods.” Zofia transferred her embrace from her brother to her father with a grateful shiver. The Viscount held her tightly. “What happened?” He asked, pulling Julian back to examine his face. “You were supposed to watch her.”

“It was my fault, Papa,” Zofia said with shocking contriteness, before Julian could even begin to formulate a response. “Julian told me I could come with him and Albin if I stayed out of the middle and away from the reeds. But I saw a fish frozen near the willow and I wanted to see.”

Julian shuddered again. A fish. He almost lost his sister because of a fish. “My fault too,” he admitted, “I should have watched her closer.”

“Julian saved me, Papa!” Zofia cried, before the Viscount could muster a glare for his son. “I’d still be dead if he hadn’t sang to me.”

The Viscount flinched as if he’d been struck. Julian could hardly blame him.

It felt as though the ice had reached through skin, muscle, and bone to burrow deep inside his heart. The air itself had turned to water. Thick and syrupy with cold, and bitter with anticipation. 

“There was a room,” Zofia whispered. Julian made a choked noise, caught between begging her to continue and demanding that she stop. His father's grip was all that kept him from turning tail like a coward. “A dark room and then a door opened and I saw light on the other side and it felt like-” she sighed, “like I was coming home from autumn gleaning and the fire was lit and I knew it would be warm and someone had laid out cheesecake and licorice just for me.”

“Stop,” Julian whispered. Not more than a breath caught between his teeth. She didn’t hear him, or else ignored him.

“-But I heard him singing, and it felt like he’d tied a rope around my wrist. I couldn’t see it, but I knew.” Her eyes met his, blue to blue, like the winter sky. “The door was a lie. But the song was you. So I followed you back.”

The Viscount pressed a harsh kiss to Zofia’s hair. Then, for perhaps the first time since Julian's voice had dropped, he kissed his son as well. “My boy,” he whispered, then shouted with wet laughter. “My boy, who sings the dead to life!”

The village men, who had hung back as the family embraced, moved forward with a cheer. They reached out with blankets that smelled of horses and smoke. Albin was there, clutching at Julian’s shoulders, shaking with cold and adrenaline, laughing as the men patted their backs and voices ran together in celebration.

“Tonight, let every man and woman join me in my house,” the Viscount called, pushing through the crowd toward his horse. Zofia still shivered in his arms. “The wine will flow free and the music freer.”

The raucous agreement was jarring in a world beginning to waver in Julian’s eyes. He leaned heavily on Albin’s shoulder and allowed his friend to help him wrestle off his skates and mount the waiting horse.

The men were too caught up in relief and celebration to notice the silver road that stretched between the trees behind the lake. Julian saw it. Or he thought he did. But between one blink and the next, it was gone. He didn’t say anything about it, even when Albin asked him why he was so quiet.

There was nothing any mortal man could do about the Staryk.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: Cold-water drowning and resuscitation; brief mentions of Jaskier being afraid his father would hit him but no actual abuse
> 
> *Lyrics borrowed from "It was a lover and his lass" by Shakespeare
> 
> **Lyrics borrowed from "Resurrection" by Sidney Lanier. Also, I really should have expected to have difficulties finding resurrection poetry that did not explicitly contain Jesus Christ. I went to Catholic school for 17 years, this should not be a shock to me. 
> 
> Please note that I am not a first responder and the resuscitation methods described here are based on brief research of both modern and antiquated practices. Fun fact! Antiquated resuscitation occasionally included enemas. So there's another reason to be grateful we live in the 21st century.


	3. The Witch Between

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He pushed himself to his feet and grinned down at Geralt and Yennefer who watched him with fond and malicious amusement, respectively. “Never let it be said that the Great Bard Jaskier can’t read a room,” he declared with a dramatic flourish. “Go, make merry and, for Roach’s sake if not your own, order a bath.”
> 
> He may be willing to spend some decades pining after a man who thought of him as a bearable nuisance. That did not mean that he would willingly suffer the discomfort of watching that man follow the woman he loved to bed.
> 
> Jaskier had lost his pride some time ago, but his self-preservation lingered on in one form or another.

When they reached Toussaint, Jaskier was struck by the sudden and horrifying realization that he had never bothered to ask Geralt why they were traveling so far south. Geralt had pointed them in that direction and Jaskier had followed like a starry-eyed fool.

He dearly regretted his blasé attitude now.

“Oh fuck a duck. Geralt!” 

“Be nice,” Geralt entreated, the hypocrite. “She’s paying.”

“Geralt,” Yennefer greeted, drawing nearer with an aura of smug disdain that Jaskier could nearly taste. “Bard, I don’t recall inviting you along on this particular venture.”

“ _You_ didn’t,” Jasker taunted.

She frowned and he somehow refrained from sticking his tongue out like a schoolboy. 

Geralt intervened before Yennefer could release the barb no doubt poised at the tip of her tongue. “It’s good to see you, Yen.”

This softened her slightly, and Jaskier masked a scowl by calling for ale. Geralt never said that he was glad when _they_ reunited. But then, Geralt wasn’t in love with Jaskier.

“I’m glad you came,” Yennefer murmured, pressing into Geralt’s space. “I wasn’t sure the message caught you.”

“It didn’t say much.”

“And yet, here you are.”

“Hmm.”

Jaskier accepted his ale from the barmaid and quickly drained most of it in a few long pulls. He called for another, wondering how many he could get through before Yennefer realized he was putting them on her tab. Likely not enough to render him insensible beneath the table. Which, given the way this conversation was going, was currently his most fervent desire.

“You know, as a highly powerful sorceress asking for a favor, the polite thing to do would have been to summon a portal to make the travel easier.” Jaskier grumbled, pointedly interrupting Geralt and Yennefer’s meaningful eye contact.

Yennefer’s frown was back. “Because you are an expert on magical etiquette?” She drawled.

“Merely a footsore observer,” Jaskier responded, exchanging his empty tankard for a full one. He dropped to a bench at a nearby table and waited for them both to join him. Which, surprisingly, they did. “You still haven’t said why we’re here, you know. Are you planning to brainwash Geralt again? It’s only that, if that’s the case, I should start playing now so as to muster bail money for his inevitable imprisonment.”

Geralt elbowed him sharply. Jaskier was unrepentant, though he fell to surly silence beneath the Witcher’s gaze.

Yennefer arched her brows, “Actually, I had hoped to engage his services.”

“I hope you got two rooms, then. I’m a light sleeper and voyeurism has never tickled my fancy.”

“Jaskier,” Geralt said his name like he was praying for patience. 

That was Jasker’s third favorite Geralt-ism. His very favorite being the soft “Jaskier” whispered when it was dark and Geralt was checking to see if he was still awake; a quiet intimacy stretched out beneath the stars. His second favorite was the “hmm” Geralt made when Jaskier said something he actually found amusing, usually accompanied by a half-hidden smile. 

This fond irritation was satisfying in its own way, mostly because Jaskier aspired to elicit such a response. Achieving it accidentally was an unexpected pleasure.

Yennefer’s laughter, on the other hand, was unnerving. “Not those kinds of services, though I shall keep it in mind.”

“You need a Witcher,” Geralt supplied before Jaskier could continue the banter. “What for?”

“There’s a creature in the foothills of the Amells. Stories vary, some say she’s merely an ancient sorceress, others think she’s Fae or a minor deity. Not much is known, apart from the fact that children have been disappearing from the forest for some hundred years now.” Yennefer raised her hand imperiously and the barmaid appeared with a goblet of wine for her, and ale for Geralt.

Geralt accepted the ale, tapping his fingers against the tankard meditatively. “What do you think?”

“I don’t know. It’s hard to say. There’s a strong magic in the woods around these parts, detection and misdirection and all sorts of nasty little surprises. I didn’t portal you here,” she looked significantly at Jaskier, “because she’d sense magic that strong. Surprise is our most potent weapon.”

“What’s your angle?” Jaskier asked, leaning forward. “This isn’t out of the goodness of your heart. What’s in it for you?”

Yennefer glanced at Geralt, watching her, and rolled her eyes. “Yes, alright, she has something I want. A set of scales said to influence the balance between life and death.”

“Hmm.”

Jaskier hid his confusion behind his tankard. He could swear that sounded familiar. A folk song, maybe? He lost himself in irritated musing for a minute, trying to recall where he had heard such a story before.

“-and the rooms are yours for the night regardless,” Yennefer was saying when Jaskier wrenched himself back to the conversation at hand.

“Rooms?” Geralt asked, tilting his head with the slightest pull of a smile.

She crossed her elbows and leaned forward, displaying her cleavage. Jaskier drained his second ale. “I find that I’m not much of an exhibitionist,” she murmured coyly. 

“Yes, you are,” Jaskier muttered with a snort.

For a moment, her purple eyes flickered with true anger. He wondered if she was actually powerful enough to turn him into a toad, or perhaps a little songbird. That would be far more appropriate. Before his curiosity could manifest as actual fear, Yennefer laughed.

“Yes, I am,” she agreed. “And you are a voyeur, and we will sleep in separate rooms.”

Jaskier could feel his cheeks burning. Geralt hummed his amusement quietly, with the slightest smile. Here and now, with the expression directed at the witch who held his Witcher’s heart, Jaskier found his delight in the Geralt-ism soured in his stomach.

He pushed himself to his feet and grinned down at Geralt and Yennefer who watched him with fond and malicious amusement, respectively. “Never let it be said that the Great Bard Jaskier can’t read a room,” he declared with a dramatic flourish. “Go, make merry and, for Roach’s sake if not your own, order a bath.”

The crowd in the inn was boisterous, cheerful, and well-dressed. Jaskier, who had developed an impressive bardic sense for these things, guessed he could easily make enough for several days of comfortable travel on the dinner rush alone.

He left anyway. Jaskier may be willing to spend some decades pining after a man who thought of him as a bearable nuisance. That did not mean that he would willingly suffer the discomfort of watching that man follow the woman he loved up the stairs of the inn to bed.

Jaskier had lost his pride some time ago, but his self-preservation lingered on in one form or another.

The market just west of the town center was bustling. It was a poorer area, the people that huddled around the booths were working men and women dressed in homespun garments. It was not a curiosity market, like he might find if he wandered closer to the nobles’ estates. These buskers sold produce, animals, bolts of plain linen and jars of honeycomb.

He would not make much money here.

Jaskier sat on a low stone wall and pulled his lute out anyway. His fingers cradled the neck and he plucked at the strings with thoughtless familiarity. A new melody danced at the edges of his thought and he closed his eyes to toy with lyrics. _The red sky at dawn is giving a warning, you fool. Better stay out of sight_. Not bad, maybe he could fit it in.

When he opened his eyes again, there was a young woman watching him across the courtyard. Jaskier offered her a smile, but found his heart wasn’t in it. His stomach still twisted at the thought of Geralt and Yennefer sitting together in the inn, reaching out, walking up the stairs, drawing closer and closer together.

The notes gained confidence as he set aside thoughts of a new masterpiece and returned to a more familiar melody. An old composition, and not one of his more popular ones. It had always been a little too introspective to gain traction outside of the Oxenfurt crowd.

> “Tell me once again
> 
> I could have been anyone, anyone else  
> Before you made the choice for me  
> My feet knew the path  
> We walked in the dark, in the dark  
> I never gave a single thought  
> To where it might lead--” *

A young boy broke free of his mother and ran to Jaskier’s feet, staring up at him with wondering eyes. He reached out a grubby hand and touched the golden wood of Filavandrel’s lute with reverence.

“Julian!” The young mother shouted, chasing after him with annoyance and apology writ clear on her face. She gripped his shoulder fiercely and nodded at Jaskier. “Apologies, my lord, he’s only a curious little creature.”

Jaskier grinned and slid off the wall to sit on the ground, at eye level with the boy. “I’m no lord, my good lady,” he assured her. “And I take no offense. Your name is Julian?”

The boy nodded, eyes still on the lute.

“What a coincidence! My name is Julian, too. Can you play, little Julian?”

“We cannot afford an instrument, my lord,” the woman said.

Jaskier smiled up at her, mustering his charm. “If you would like, I can watch him for you as you shop. Us Julians must stick together,” he confided to the boy, who nodded solemnly.

“Oh, I couldn’t impose,” she said, glancing between them with obvious anxiety. 

“Nonsense, I was only going to nurse a bit of heartache until dusk. Teaching is a much better diversion! I’m a guest professor at Oxenfurt most winters, and I find I miss teaching while I’m on the road. My word, your boy shall be here safe and sound when you return.” Jaskier promised, warming to the idea as Little Julian reached out once more to trace his finger across the strings of the lute.

It took a bit more reassurance before the woman at last departed with a fierce warning to the boy that he had better behave for the kind lord, or else. Little Julian did not seem much bothered by this, and gazed up at Jaskier with simple delight.

“Can you teach me to play ‘Toss a Coin’?” He asked with the slightest hint of a childish lisp.

Jaskier laughed in pure delight, “Can I? Dear boy, I wrote the song! Here, sit here, and hold the lute just so.”

Toss a Coin turned out to be just a bit complicated for a youngster whose fingers could not quite span the full progression. Little Julian was content to learn the simple chords of the opening before returning the lute to Jaskier so that he could hear the song in full.

Jaskier, enjoying the receptive audience, couldn’t help but show off just a little. Soon he was surrounded by various youngsters who had been attracted by the lively music. They drew in closer than usual, likely put at ease by Little Julian’s comfort at his side, and began calling out requests.

“The Fishmonger’s Daughter!” One boy called. He was older than the rest of the crowd, just at the cusp of manhood, and mischievous with it.

Jaskier glared at him in mock outrage, “You scoundrel! Think of the little ones!”

“Don’t be naughty, Bernard,” a little girl, likely not even six, commanded. “Do you know The Witch Between, sir?”

The phrase niggled at the back of Jaskier’s mind. His eye twitched in irritation. First Yennefer and now this. His memory was usually flawless, twice in one day was beyond the pale.

“The Witch Between, hmm? Hum a few chords for me.”

She did, and Jaskier was able to pluck along to the tune but he did not recognize it. The girl shrugged and requested a Skellige sea shanty instead.

Near dusk, Little Julian’s mother returned and chased the children off to their respective homes. She thanked Jaskier profusely and pressed a jar of lavender honey into his hands.

“Might I ask a favor, good lady?” Jaskier asked as Little Julian showed off the chords he had learned.

The woman smiled up at him. She was quite lovely when her face wasn’t lined with worry. “Of course, my lord.”

“A child asked for a song earlier, one that I swear I knew, but could not quite recall. I hate turning down requests, you see. It’s a point of professional pride. Could you refresh my memory?”

“I’ve no mind for songs, my lord, but I can try.”

“She asked me to sing The Witch Between.”

The woman stood and briskly shook out her skirts, snapping her fingers for Little Julian to follow. He did so reluctantly, passing the lute back to Jaskier.

“The Witch Between is an old song, my lord,” she said curtly. “To sing it openly is bad luck, but I will tell you that it is a tale of the Baba Yaga who dwells deep in the Amells. We teach it to our children so that they know not to wander into the forests.”

Jaskier watched her and Little Julian go until they rounded a corner at the end of the market and were beyond his sight. He turned and slowly began the long walk back to the inn. 

Fuck. Baba Yaga. No wonder his memory had failed him. 

Anger began to overcome shock as he walked. Yennefer wanted Geralt’s help to challenge the Yaga? Was she insane? Did she actually want to die?

He accepted the key to his room from the innkeep and made his way up without registering the journey. A bath was waiting for him, cold by now, but he still washed. Someone, presumably Geralt, had dropped his bag inside the door. He changed into cleaner clothes and washed his laundry in the bath water before hanging it in front of the fire to dry.

All of this he did unseeing, mind racing as he tried to understand Yennefer’s motivations. Surely she knew what a horrible idea this was. It was suicide to confront powers like Baba Yaga, even with a Witcher at your back.

He sat by the fire, watching the flames dance and lingering in memories so faded they felt like half-remembered nightmares. Anger flickered in his breast and he stood, hesitated, and sat again. The cycle repeated several times before he finally got up and began pacing the hall between his room and the one Geralt and Yennefer shared. It was identifiable primarily by the shadows beneath the door where Jaskier knew Geralt always rested a chair beneath the handle to slow a potential attacker.

Jaskier reached out to knock, paused mere inches from the door, and retreated.

“Coward,” he muttered. “Fucking idiot. What are you going to do, anyway? Knock on the door and say ‘yes, good evening! Have you perchance considered _not_ pissing off the most powerful creature south of the Northern Forests?’ Because that will go over well.”

“Jaskier, what the fuck?”

Jaskier nearly leapt out of his skin. He whipped around, gaping at Yennefer who stood at the threshold of her room, silhouetted by the warm golden light of the fire inside. She was wearing a beautiful silk robe, dyed a rich, dark purple that Jaskier guessed cost more than he earned in a year.

“I could ask you the same thing!” He blurted before his common sense could catch up with his mouth. “You want Geralt’s help to go after the fucking Baba Yaga?”

If she weren’t so confident, the look on Yenefer’s face might read as cagey.

“How did you know that?”

“I can put two and two together, you know. Whatever else you may think of me, I’m not an idiot.”

“All evidence to the contrary,” Yennefer said, but it lacked the normal acidity. “What do you know about it anyway? I would have thought the Fae were a little beyond the purview of a simple bard.”

Anxiety washed over Jaskier like a tidal wave, but the anger didn’t falter. “She’s dangerous, Yennefer. You can’t kill her, and her tools will never bend to your will. There’s nothing to gain.”

“And nothing to lose.”

“There is _everything_ to lose!”

She raised one perfect eyebrow and regarded him coolly. “Geralt has already accepted the contract. You are, of course, welcome to stay behind.”

“You are not leaving me here while you fuck off and get yourselves killed out there!”

Yennefer shrugged and half turned to go back into the room. Over her shoulder, Jaskier could see Geralt sprawled across the rumpled bed. The sheets were pushed down, revealing the scarred expanse of his broad shoulders and the soft curve and swell of his back. 

Jaskier’s mouth went dry.

“Suit yourself. Though it’s not as if you have anything to offer.”

The door shut behind her and the bolt slid home with a definitive thump. Numbly, Jaskier turned and retreated to his bed. It was cold, and everything smelled vaguely of wet cloth and chamomile. His stomach cramped - a vicious reminder that he hadn’t paused for supper - but he ignored it.

By now, he should be used to going without.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *The Moon Will Sing by the Crane Wives - this is actually the song that inspired me to start this project and I adore it, so it may or may not make a reappearance.
> 
> Please do not trust strangers who offer childcare on the streets. This is generally Not Okay, though it wasn't uncommon to have that type of laissez-faire attitude Way Back When. 
> 
> I feel like I should apologize to anyone who reads this who is actually familiar with Baba Yaga's mythology. This isn't going to be much like that, though it will hopefully capture some of the essence of her legends. Idk - I generally have no idea what I'm doing. But I'm going to have fun writing it. Let me know what you think! Constructive criticism is appreciated and taken under consideration.


	4. Claimed and Challenged

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Staryk was tall, taller even than Julian’s father, and as whipcord thin as a young willow. His face was fierce, both sharp and shifting beneath Julian’s gaze as though his features changed imperceptibly between one moment and the next. Julian couldn’t look away, but he found that when he blinked he could not hold the image of the Staryk in his mind. His perception distorted it, stretching and twisting until he could not tell what made him more afraid - looking or not looking.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW - details at end of chapter

Albin found Julian out in the orchard. It had always been something of an escape for them both, though usually only in the bright heat of spring and summer. The sheltering branches felt far more ominous when naked of their leaves and stark against the silvery winter sky.

“Your father is looking for you,” Albin told him, dropping down to sit at his side on the snowbank. 

Julian sighed. “Why do you think I’m here and not inside?”

“I’ve always known you might be short of a marble,” Albin said with a bright grin that faded when Julian didn’t smile back. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.”

“Obviously it’s something.”

Julian barely lasted two minutes before he caved to his friend’s concern. “I’m tired of it. Zofia loves the attention and Father thinks the story will give them some prestige, so they won’t stop talking about it. Day in and day out!”

“Well, it is a significant event,” Albin acknowledged warily.

“I hate it! I see it all the time: every time I blink, whenever I attempt to sleep, I even see my sister drowning in the fucking bath water, Albin. What’s happening to me?” Julian buried his face in his hands and tried to hide the way his breath hitched in his throat.

Albin’s hand rested heavily on his shoulder. “I didn’t know. I’m sorry.”

“Yes, well. I can sing the dead to life, and apparently there’s no escaping it.” Julian leaned into his friend’s embrace.

They sat there, watching the snow fall, for nearly an hour before Julian began to shiver. Albin stood and brushed snow from the seat of his pants. “Oliwia’s father is mulling wine. Want to go get warmed up?”

Julian nodded and accepted Albin’s helping hand to rise. “I’d race you, but I think my legs may be frozen.”

Albin laughed. “That’s alright, my lord,” he said with a bow, “you can lean on me.”

Oliwia and Albin successfully distracted Julian until well past supper. The three of them made their tipsy way through the back gate of the Viscount’s manor and Albin boosted Julian up onto the low roof of the shed. From there, he was able to clamber somewhat precariously into his rooms, undetected in spite of his two friends cheering drunkenly in the garden.

Their efforts did not, unfortunately, keep the nightmares at bay. 

In his dreams, he looks for Zofia in the dark waters of the lake. He reaches and reaches, but he can’t feel anything. He pulls his arms up and his hands are black and cracked with frostbite. His fingers can’t move, his elbows won’t bend. He turns to ask Albin for help, but he’s alone.

Julian looks down at the hole in the ice, heart pounding, and sees Zofia floating just beneath the surface. She’s waxy and pale, more ghost than girl in the murky water.

Her eyes open.

Julian sat up with a gasp. His breath hung in the air before him and he turned to the hearth, gone cold and dark sometime in the night.

He’s mustering the energy to get up and rebuild the fire when a booming  _ thud _ echoes in the winter air and seems to shake the very stones beneath his feet. Julian stilled, looking toward his door.

A second boom follows mere moments after the first. 

Julian grabbed a thick, quilted robe from the foot of his bed and shoved his chilled toes into the boots at his door. The halls between his room and the front door were empty, but when he reached the front hall he found the house servants huddled near the entrance, staring at the door in abject terror.

“Someone’s knocking,” Julian said, when it was clear that his presence wasn’t enough to inspire some kind of action.

The butler, shaking, made no move.

Julian strode past him and threw the bolt. With a heave, he pulled the ponderous door open inch by inch. When it was wide enough to look out, he wished he’d been harsher with the butler.

After Julian was born, his mother had hired a village woman as his wetnurse. Matilde had been a country girl, far too coarse for the Viscount’s household, but it had been a poor year and there were few women with milk who could spare the time to nurse a baby not their own.

Matilde had stayed on as Julian’s nurse until he was seven. She taught him clogging music and folk songs in her backwoods burl. At her knee he learned mending, cooking, and other women’s work, much to his father’s displeasure. Even more contentious, however, were her lessons on the Staryk.

They were not openly spoken of in the Viscount’s house. The Viscount was a man of the south who married into these northern lands at the czar’s pleasure. He had no patience for children’s tales of winter Fae.

Behind closed doors, Matilde told Julian the stories that all the village children knew by heart. Tales of Staryk sweeping through the lands surrounding the Northern Forest, pillaging gold and bathing the streets in blood. She whispered of snowstorms blown in from a clear sky with nothing but a silver road to give the people warning.

Matilde had never once described what the Staryk looked like. None who witnessed them, she said, had ever survived the encounter.

It was not what he imagined.

The Staryk was tall, taller even than Julian’s father, and as whipcord thin as a young willow. His face was fierce, both sharp and shifting beneath Julian’s gaze as though his features changed imperceptibly between one moment and the next. Julian couldn’t look away, but he found that when he blinked he could not hold the image of the Staryk in his mind. His perception distorted it, stretching and twisting until he could not tell what made him more afraid - looking or not looking.

“You are he who claims to raise the dead.” The Staryk’s voice was shockingly deep, like the echoing boom of the lake cracking during a rapid freeze.

Julian pulled his shoulders back and gave a small bow. His voice failed him, and he had to tuck shaking hands behind the folds of his robe.

The Staryk watched him, unimpressed. When Julian straightened, he thrust a small bundle into his arms. Julian caught it mostly on instinct.

“What?” He asked, stupidly, staring down at the white-gray folds of cloth that wrapped around what felt horrifyingly like --

“Thrice you shall repeat your deed, three Staryk souls recall before the third day’s dawn, or else be turned to ice yourself,” the Staryk intoned.

Before Julian could manage a protest, the Staryk turned and strode down the steps. At the path there was a deer, larger than a horse, with antlers that nearly dwarfed it. It had clawed feet, splayed out in the fresh snow that fell upon the gravel.

The Staryk flung himself up onto the deer’s back and wheeled away. Julian watched him go, gaping helplessly.

When flurries of fresh powder began to blow the tracks away, Julian finally broke free of whatever spell of horror had held him fast. Minute tremors ran across his skin as he steeled himself and slowly, slowly pulled aside the cloth that wrapped the bundle in his arms.

It was an infant. A Staryk infant, undoubtedly, though it was utterly unlike the Staryk Lord. No shifting ice magic twisted Julian’s mind. The babe’s unseeing eyes and cold, white face were nauseatingly still and real in his arms.

Julian stepped inside and looked up at the Viscount’s household, watching him. “It is time, I think,” he said with the faintest tremor in his voice, “to wake my father.”

The Viscount, Viscountess, and Zofia joined them in the entrance hall as the household lingered at the edges of the room. Julian could hardly begrudge their morbid fascination. He rather wished he could join them on the fringes.

“They want me to sing it back to life,” Julian explained while his father stared at the body in his arms, unblinking. “They mean to kill me when I fail.”

“If,” Zofia corrected, standing on her tip-toes to peer at his burden. He twisted it away from her and she pouted ferociously. “You sang  _ me _ back to life,” she was quick to say when he scoffed.

“I resuscitated you and I sang at the end,” Julian corrected. He was shaking, partly with cold and partly with fear.

His mother moaned. Unlike her husband, she was born and bred in the north. She had learned to fear the winter much as Julian had. When she spoke, her voice already carried the weight of grief. “And how can a mortal boy resuscitate a Staryk?”

Julian flinched. A spark of anger, lit by the dark acceptance in his mother’s voice, consumed his despair.  _ How dare you, _ he thought, gazing into her bleak eyes.  _ How dare you give up. _

“Zofia,” he snapped. His sister jerked to attention at the crack of his voice, which bore startling similarity to his father’s in his temper. “Fetch my lute from my room and bring it to the ice house.”

She turned and ran, feet slapping against the floor.

Ignoring his parents, Julian turned and pointed blindly at the staff. “You, I’ll need blankets and furs. Bring them to the ice house. You,” he said, pointing again without giving anyone time to question him, “and you. Bring a copper tub. Wake the guardhouse if you need help lifting it. Pack it tight with snow and ice. Someone fetch a winter hat, and for Melitele’s sake bring me my socks.”

They jumped to action nearly simultaneously as Julian turned and strode out of the entrance hall. He wasn’t shaking anymore, but his fear had not dissipated. His parents did not follow.

He climbed into the bowels of the ice house and stood out of the way of the controlled chaos he had instigated. The bundle in his arms seemed to grow heavier with each passing moment. Julian imagined that he could feel the cold from the little body eating away at the skin of his arms, even through the layers of cloth.

He remembered his nightmare and swallowed thickly.

“I brought your lute,” Zofia called, dashing past the guards lugging buckets of snow and sliding to a stop at Julian’s elbow, “and Mama said to give you these.” She thrust a pair of thick woolen socks into Julian’s hand.

Julian quickly flipped the cloth up over the babe’s face and set it on an ice block at his side, tilting his shoulders so that Zofia couldn’t peer around him as he pulled the socks on. She pouted, but didn’t try to push.

“My lord?” The guard captain hovered a respectful ten feet back from Julian and Zofia, wringing his hands together. Julian winced. He had known this man since boyhood, had learned to ride beneath his careful tutelage. Now the captain would not meet his eyes.

“Yes, Jakob?”

“It is as you asked, my lord.”

“Right.” Julian lifted the bundle in one hand and accepted his lute from Zofia with the other. He gestured at the guardsmen, the only staff remaining in the icehouse. “You may go.”

Julian glanced at Zofia, but she shook her head. “I’m staying,” she asserted.

“You don’t have to.”

“Yes I do.”

“Buttercup...”

“I’ll have fewer nightmares if I sit and listen to you sing than I would if I spent the next hours alone, waiting for you.” 

... _ to die _ , went mercifully unsaid, though it lingered in the air between them. Zofia met his eyes with feverish intensity and Julian found that, while his anger still urged him on, his sister’s words did not stoke the fire.

She was afraid, and he had always been weak in the face of her fear.

“Fine.” 

Gently, he unwrapped the Staryk babe and lowered it delicately onto the bed of ice. Zofia made a choked sound as he laid it out.

“It’s so pale,” she murmured, staring down at the tiny face. Its skin did not have the waxy sheen that Zofia’s had taken in the lake. It was a watery white, like snow compressed to ice in a child’s hand, melting and crumbling away. 

He began the compressions. It only took two fingers to push against the creature’s chest and his free hand clenched uselessly against his thigh. Almost immediately, the cold bit at his skin. He ignored it, focusing on the one-two push of his fingers. 

One-two, and again. One-two, and again. Behind his eyes, he saw the ice of the lake and the stillness of his sister’s face. One-two, and again. His calves ached with the imprint of Albin’s hands. The bruises were still dark and fresh. One-two, and again.

Hours passed, or maybe only minutes, before Zofia spoke.

“Aren’t you going to sing?”

“This is what works,” Julian bit out. The cold and the previous night’s wine - and didn’t a hangover on top of everything else just seem cosmically unfair - made his head ache. Anger and fear had given way to irritability within the first hundred one-two counts..

Zofia made a small noise, some little sigh, and then there was a blanket wrapped around Julian’s shoulders. “The music is what called me back,” she corrected.

Julian rested his forehead against the edge of the tub, shivered, and sat back up. “I’m not magic, Zofia. This is a mistake.”

“The Staryk seem to think you are.”

“The Staryk heard us bragging and wanted to humble us,” Julian guessed bitterly.

Zofia winced. “I told Old Nan that you were magic,” she whispered. “I told everyone.”

Silence besieged them, and Julian was acutely aware of his sister’s shaking breath in the foggy dimness.

“Did your nurse teach you how to do this?” He asked when the tension grew thick enough to drown him.

Zofia shook her head. Her nurse had been a lady of the court sent to wait upon the Viscountess’ pleasure. She had never had someone like practical Matilde to teach her what all people of the north should know. She had only had Julian, a poor teacher often distracted by his own childish lessons and impulses.

Julian took her hand and guided it to the babe’s chest. She leaned against him as he pushed her fingers with his own. One-two, and again. One-two, and again.

When she had the rhythm, he pulled a fur from the blankets at his side and wrapped it around her shoulders. A rabbit fur hat lay beside the blankets. He pulled that on, tugging the flaps down over his ears and relishing the warmth.

“Will you sing the same song?” Zofia whispered.

“No,” Julian snapped almost before he registered the question. Zofia flinched and he breathed more slowly, considering. “Maybe,” he allowed after a moment, “but only if nothing else works.”

_ I never want to sing that song again _ , he thought. He had liked that song, too. It had been rather lovely, before he began associating it with--

“Then what?”

_ Then what, indeed _ ? Julian’s fingers plucked anxiously at the lute strings. It was a comforting weight in his hands, clearly separating the cold in the air from that which haunted him in memory. He had not had his lute before.

He started with a warm-up, a cheerful counting song that some traveling minstrel had taught him years ago. It fell flat in the echo of the ice house; consumed by the dread of death.

Julian flexed his hands and met Zofia’s frightened eyes. She felt it too, he was almost positive, the emptiness where there should be joy. When he had sung before, even lost in his grief, it had not felt so hollow.

A funeral dirge did not seem appropriate. Julian wanted to call back the babe’s soul, if he could, not urge it on with sorrow. He leaned forward, strumming gentle chords, and studied the child’s face.

It - no, she - was unmistakably inhuman. Even without the magic that had roiled in the Staryk Lord, there was a quality in her that separated her death from what Julian had glimpsed in Zofia. 

The Staryk, he mused as he studied her, must have long lives. The tales all said that the Fae walked the edges of the world for lifetimes beyond the ken of any mortal man. And yet, and yet.

He wondered if a Staryk mother lingered in the forest, waiting for word of the daughter that her Lord had granted to the keeping of some hapless mortal. 

His hand shifted up the neck of his lute and he began playing anew. He recalled Matilde’s calloused hand, heavy on his head as they walked along the path to town.

> “Whose woods these are I think I know,
> 
> His house is in the village though;
> 
> He will not see me stopping here
> 
> To watch his woods fill up with snow.
> 
> My little horse must think it queer
> 
> To stop without a farmhouse near
> 
> Between the woods and frozen lake
> 
> The darkest evening of the year.
> 
> He gives his harness bells a shake
> 
> To ask if there is some mistake.
> 
> The only other sound’s the sweep
> 
> Of easy wind and downy flake,
> 
> The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
> 
> But I have promises to keep,
> 
> And miles to go before I sleep,
> 
> And miles to go before I sleep.”*

Julian lingered on the repetition, holding the chords until they bled to silence. Before the music faded from his mind, he began again. This song did not feel flat, though it didn’t feel particularly magical. He ached with uncertainty.

After several hours, Zofia began to shiver. Julian set aside his lute and, still singing, began the compressions again. 

When Zofia’s hands had warmed, they traded places again.

Distantly, Julian wondered how long they had worked. The words had lost meaning, he could barely tell if his lips still formed the lyrics or merely shaped vague sounds to fit the tune. His throat was raw with cold and use. His fingers had blistered on the lute strings and his wounds left spots of blood on the infant’s chest.

“Julian,” Zofia whispered.

He barely heard her. 

“Julian!”

Julian jerked, coughing and blinking muzzily. When had he taken Zofia’s place again?

The babe blinked back at him.

“Melitele’s tits!” Julian yelped, tumbling back and scrambling on legs that tingled from disuse. “How long has she been breathing?”

“I don’t know,” Zofia whispered, peering down at the babe in awe. “I closed my eyes for a moment and when I looked again--”

“She didn’t cry?” Julian crept forward again, reaching out to gently trail a finger down the babe’s cheek. His fingernails were tinted blue with cold. The babe turned toward his touch, rooting just as any human baby might.

Zofia shook her head.

Weakly, Julian slung his lute across his back and wrapped the Staryk babe in the silver cloth she’d been brought in. Her skin was still pale, but now it had a certain translucency; like fresh ice on a still lake, or a new icicle forming on a snow-weighted branch.

Zofia followed him up the ice house ramp and out into the gray-pink light of winter dawn.

A fire blazed in the yard. The Viscount and Viscountess huddled near the flames. Various senior members of the household waited quietly at their side. All of them looked up when Julian and Zofia emerged.

The babe cooed softly in Julian’s arms and the Viscountess cried out, dropping heavily to her knees.

“Mama!” Zofia dashed forward and flung herself into her mother’s arms. The Viscountess clutched her daughter and wept, loudly and without shame.

No one else made any sound at all.

“The hour?” Julian rasped.

The Viscount glanced at the sky. “Near dawn,” he said. “Perhaps a quarter hour, maybe less.”

Julian squared his shoulders and limped through the yard. He imagined that he could feel the eyes upon him like cobwebs, sticking disturbingly to his skin as he moved past. They trailed behind him, a train of ducklings dressed in wool and dazzled by the quiet murmurs of the Staryk child in his arms. Living proof of his success.

The Staryk Lord waited at the gate. His narrow face was stiff with displeasure as he watched Julian approach.

Julian halted several feet from his outstretched hand.

“Why are you doing this?” He asked, refusing to wince at the croak in his voice.

The Staryk Lord sneered. “You think to question my motives?”

“I think to question the purpose of this exercise,” Julian snapped. “Failure brings me death. Fine. And what shall you give me, then, when I succeed?”

As if in support, the child cooed again. One pale arm flung out and caught on Julian’s cheek. The Staryk Lord recoiled. “You barter with forces you do not understand,” he warned. 

Julian met his eyes, filled with the black stillness of a winter’s night. “By my measure, the only way out is through.”

“So be it. Recall three Staryk souls before the third day’s dawn and you shall claim eternity in my noble court, and all the status therein implied. Fail,” he added with relish, “and be turned to ice.”

Julian held the child out and flinched as the Staryk tore her from his stiff grip. The beastly deer wheeled and raced out into the trees where the silver road glittered on the snow.

The Viscount’s hand on his shoulder startled him back to awareness. It was snowing again, if it had ever stopped.

“What did he say?” The Viscount asked.

Julian could feel his chin dimple as he fought to keep from crying. “I made a bargain.”

“A good bargain?”

“No,” Julian glanced back at his mother and sister, curled together, wan and tear-stained. “I think not.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: Description of dead child, not human but very humanized; temporary death.
> 
> *Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening by Robert Frost.
> 
> Writing these past two chapters has really made me realize how much I miss being able to see my niece and nephews. #QuarantineLyfe.


	5. On the Hunt

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She was at once exactly what he feared and nothing he could have imagined. Her face did not shift and change. There was no Winter beneath her skin. That, he thought, might have made it easier.
> 
> Instead she was a woman, or perhaps not. She was young and alive with ephemeral beauty that stole his breath and brought tears to his eyes. But she was also ancient, wrinkled and pallid with the nearness of death. She towered over him and yet huddled, shrunken and twisted. Her teeth were sharp and stained with things he did not like to imagine. Her smile was captivating.
> 
> Her eyes held all the stars of the night sky, unfolding in the darkness of her pupils.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger Warning - please see end notes for details

“--for the evil old witch may just snatch out your eyes!” 

Jaskier held the final note, strumming furiously on his lute as he walked, and nearly ran face-first into a tree.

Yennefer - the bitch - laughed. Geralt merely winced. In spite of the fourth repetition of the three songs he had composed on the stupidity of crossing Baba Yaga, neither of them seemed willing to give this idiotic mission up.

“She turns people into chickens, you know,” Jaskier told Yennefer. “Actually, I’ve been meaning to ask: is that just a normal magic thing? Could you turn someone into a chicken if you wanted?”

“I prefer toads,” Yennefer responded without so much as a glance in his direction. “They’re much quieter.”

Jaskier gave a nervous chuckle and sped up slightly to walk closer to Roach. “She’s joking, right?” He muttered out of Yennefer’s earshot.

Geralt looked down at him with a smile. His eyes were warm with humor, and Jaskier tried to convince himself that Geralt was laughing with him and not at him. When the corners of his eyes crinkled just so, it was easy to read his expression as affectionate. Of course, that was probably just wishful thinking on Jaskier’s part. Translating Geralt-isms was an art, not a science. 

_ And it’s not as though Geralt gives me much to work with _ , Jaskier reflected wryly.

"Human transformation takes enormous energy,” Geralt said, not lowering his voice at all. “Yen could probably turn you into a toad if she was willing to kill ten thousand toads to balance the Chaos.”

“More work than you’re worth,” Yennefer assured Jaskier with a smirk.

“I’d argue that I’m worth all of that and more, but in this context it seems slightly counter to my best interests. Say, Geralt?”

Geralt grunted. 

“Have you ever taken a contract on one of the Fae before?”

“The Fae don’t bother humans much anymore.”

“Not an answer,” Jaskier muttered. He plucked the opening notes to his longest Baba Yaga composition, currently dubbed ‘A Warning to Ye Fools and Bastards.’ Geralt winced.

“No. They haven’t been seen in the North since long before I started the trials. The Cats have had dealings, or so the stories say.”

“Oh, interesting. Are there many stories about the Fae?” Jaskier nimbly dodged a fallen log and kept his gaze trained on the treacherous ground beneath his feet.

Yennefer snorted.

Geralt glanced at her and rolled his eyes when she blinked innocently back. “Not many, no. Always a friend-of-a-friend who had crossed blades with some fae-ish creature and barely lived to tell of it. My teacher gave them very little credence.”

“So you have literally no idea what you’re walking into, then?”

“Hmm.”

They walked for several miles in silence. After what felt like hours they reached the clearing that the townspeople had helpfully named ‘Yaga’s Glen.’ It was huge, likely several hundred feet across, with a single lightning-split pine towering in the center. Geralt consulted the map Yennefer had provided. “Three children who survived an encounter with Baba Yaga claimed to have been playing here when she appeared.”

“There has been powerful magic done here,” Yennefer said, extending her arms slightly as she surveyed the clearing through hooded eyes. “Some of this work is ancient, I’d guess it was laid long before humans had even thought to master Chaos.”

“Good acoustics,” Jaskier pointed out, listening to the echoes of their voices. “Shockingly good, woah.”

Yennefer sighed and dismounted. “A toad would be an improvement.”

“Yen,” Geralt admonished.

Jaskier stuck his tongue out at the witch from behind the Witcher’s back and dodged around to Roach’s other side. The mare lowered her head and eyed him judgmentally.

“What,” he hissed at her. “As if you’re any better.” Roach, to Jaskier’s eternal delight, had still not warmed to Yennefer.

Geralt slid from Roach’s saddle and began easing her girth. “Jas,” he muttered, too soft for Yennefer to hear even with the fantastic acoustics. “What’s wrong?”

Jaskier ground his teeth. “I have composed three songs today explicitly detailing that, my dear Witcher.”

“She saved your life, Jaskier.”

“She got you thrown in prison. Whatever cosmic or chaotic scales exist, I’d say they’re balanced.”

Geralt stopped fiddling with his saddlebags and heaved a sigh. “Play nice,” he muttered before stepping away from Roach and raising his voice slightly. “We can set up camp here, there’s a river on the far side.”

“I will if she will,” Jaskier retorted, patting Roach’s withers and peeking over her saddle to glare at Yennefer.

Yennefer grinned back.

They had hobbled Yennefer’s gelding and were halfway through building the fire when a piercing shriek echoed through the forests. Geralt paused, tilting his head to the side and narrowing his eyes in concentration.

“Cockatrice,” he said at last. “That’s unexpected.”

“The townspeople believe Yaga breeds them,” Yennefer told him. She hadn’t lifted a finger to help make camp, merely lounged in the grass and enjoyed the late afternoon sunshine.

“You know, that’s very thematic of her. Which I would appreciate under literally any other circumstances. If I weren’t certain we’d be dead at the end of this, I might get excited about the lyrical possibilities.” Jaskier dropped another load of sticks. “Geralt, why don’t Witchers keep mascots?”

“He keeps you,” Yennefer pointed out. “Go, Geralt. I can bard-sit for an hour or two.”

Geralt glanced between the two of them and unsheathed his silver sword. “Don’t wander.”

“Would I ever?” Jaskier asked, fluttering his eyelashes with an innocent pout.

The Witcher leveled a significant look at Yennefer and left without another word. Jaskier lowered himself to sit near their packs and watched him go.

Yennefer groaned. “Are you ever going to grow a spine and actually do something about your pathetic little crush?”

“Fuck off.” Jaskier threw a pine cone at her. Inches from her face it froze in midair and crumbled to ash. 

“How long have you followed him, anyways? A decade? More?”

_ Seventeen years _ , Jaskier’s memory provided easily.  _ The brightest seventeen years of my entire life. _

Yennefer watched him with knowing violet eyes. “Coward.”

“No, really. Fuck off.”

Jaskier dug through Geralt’s bags for the flint. Geralt never used it, he normally just cast Igni to light their fires. Jaskier had never been able to figure out whether he had acquired flint after they began traveling together or if he had always had it, just in case.

A pebble hit Jaskier’s arm. He ignored it. Another stung his leg. He plucked it up and flicked it back. It rebounded off whatever barrier Yennefer had put up and hit him squarely on the chin.

“Melitele’s tits!” Jaskier cried, “Enough! Honestly, what have I ever done to you?”

She threw back her head and laughed. It was a surprisingly joyful sound, not at all the cackle that Jaskier had half-expected. Like this, in the sunlit meadow without any arrogance or evil djinn, she looked very human.

When she finally stopped laughing, Yennefer swiped a finger under dry eyes. “Absolutely nothing,” she said with a chuckle. “In fact, I  _ almost _ like you.”

“I am a fucking delight,” Jaskier grumbled. “You, on the other hand, are a menace.”

“You’re a pest and I am the most powerful mage of my generation,” Yennefer corrected.

“I’m the most influential bard on the continent, and you are toying with my best friend’s heart.”

“Maybe he’s toying with mine.”

Something in Yennefer’s tone gave Jaskier pause. He studied her for a long moment. The look in her eyes seemed caught somewhere between the humanity of her laughter and the cold walls of her indifference.

Uncertainly, Jaskier set the flint aside. “Yennefer,  _ you  _ called  _ him _ to Toussaint. On a suicide mission.”

“And he brought you.”

_ Oh _ . 

“Oh ho ho! You’re jealous!” Jaskier couldn’t help but crow a little. He leaned back and grabbed his lute, flint and fire forgotten. 

“Ten thousand toads would not be as difficult as it sounds.” Yennefer flicked another pebble at him. This one hit his knuckle hard enough to split the skin. 

The lute strings jangled as he cursed and cradled his wounded hand.

Yennefer rolled her eyes at Jaskier’s antics and lit the fire with a word. They sat in silence for a time, watching the flames consume the fresh wood.

“Maybe I am,” Yennefer admitted softly. “How strange.”

Jaskier wondered if someone like Yennefer had ever experienced jealousy before. Maybe it was strange.

Another screech echoed through the trees, this one accompanied by a sharp metallic ringing like a sword striking stone. Yennefer and Jaskier flinched and their eyes met over the fire. Equal parts concern and anxiety warred in their faces.

“We could go find him,” Jaskier suggested. “He might not even be angry, if he needs help.”

“I’ll go.” Yennefer stood and shook out her skirts. “Stay here with the horses. I’ll leave the wards up. Nothing can get to you so long as you stay within them.”

“Well that’s ominous. How far out can I go?”

“Just don’t move. We’ll return shortly.” She strode off in the same direction Geralt had gone. White energy sparked between her fingers and the grass withered beneath her feet.

Jaskier shuddered. “Fucking terrifying,” he muttered, resettling his lute. “I don’t know what he sees in her.”

Dusk came and went as Jaskier toyed with his compositions. He barely noticed until his growling stomach pulled him back to a world gone dark and still. Yennefer’s gelding had fallen asleep, but Roach was alert. Her ears swiveled and she shifted uneasily.

Jaskier pulled himself to his feet and patted her neck. “Nothing yet, sweetheart? That’s probably not a good sign.”

Something rustled in the bushes. Jaskier nearly shrieked. He pressed into Roach’s side, trying to figure out where the noise had come from. Roach shook her mane, pushing back at him with her shoulder. 

The bushes rustled again and Jaskier spotted the white flash of a wild hare. His stomach helpfully reminded him that they hadn’t eaten since dawn.

“It’s only twenty feet. She must have made them larger than that,” he whispered to Roach. “And Geralt will be hungry when he gets back. He always is.”

She shook her head again with the softest nicker.

“You’re being a complete worrywart. Look, I have some herbs in my bag. Rosemary roasted hare with a lavender honey glaze sounds like a lovely close to a harrowing day. It will be fine.”

He pulled the snare from his pack and crept toward the bushes, careful to approach from downwind. He wondered if he would be able to feel Yennefer’s wards. Surely there would be some resistance, something to warn him.

When he reached the bushes without any ominous sense of horrible disaster, he gave himself a little pat on the back and began setting the snare. Traveling with Geralt had given him significant practice over the years, but the knots were still complicated. It took his whole attention to make sure he didn’t lose track of the twists.

“Long have I wandered betwixt and between. Long have I tarried, much have I seen.”

Jaskier froze. Sweat broke out across his forehead and beneath his arms. That was not a human voice. He kept his eyes trained on his now shaking hands.

“A new sight this is, like a fresh bank of snow. Tell me, my child, to where do you go?”

He kept his eyes low, casting across the ground until he saw her feet. She wore old leather boots, cracked and peeling, with long curling toes. Mud, blood, and bile was worn into the creases. Jaskier’s mind went white with panic.

“Mother, I wander betwixt and between. I follow my feet and keep my mind keen. Wherever I go, I trust to be found; my life is my own but I’m Destiny-bound.” He fumbled the last rhyme, wishing desperately that Geralt and his silver sword would burst into the clearing. 

A clawed hand reached down and gripped his jaw. He choked at the feel of leathery skin abrading the tender flesh of his neck. Her nails were yellow, long and sharp. She smelled neither foul nor sweet but somewhere between. There was something of spring rain and rot in the air about her.

“Your tongue is sharp silver, honed well for your youth. Show me your eyes and show me your Truth.” She jerked his head back and he looked up into the face of Baba Yaga.

She was at once exactly what he feared and nothing he could have imagined. Her face did not shift and change. There was no Winter beneath her skin.  _ That _ , he thought,  _ might have made it easier. _

Instead she was a woman, or perhaps not. She was young and alive with ephemeral beauty that stole his breath and brought tears to his eyes. But she was also ancient, wrinkled and pallid with the nearness of death. She towered over him and yet huddled, shrunken and twisted. Her teeth were sharp and stained with things he did not like to imagine. Her smile was captivating.

Her eyes held all the stars of the night sky, unfolding in the darkness of her pupils.

“So very weak to be so wanting; come with me, no need for hunting.” She crooned the couplet, leaning in close to smell the sweat on his skin.

Jaskier’s hands flew up, clasping her wrists in shaky supplication. “What mortal hunger I must feel, is gone again with mortal meal. My wanting, Mother, shall not stay, if I may only go my way.”

She released him, but her smile didn’t fade. The dread that had been absent when Jaskier set the snare redoubled now.

“For pretty words I set you free, but words are not enough for me. Your heart it aches, your Truth has shown. You offer a bargain or leave alone.” Yaga pressed her palms together and spread them apart. Between her hands a portal bloomed.

Jaskier leaned forward at her urging and peered into its swirling depths.

He saw Yennefer first. She was laid out on a hearth, clothing torn and muddy as though she’d fallen into a briar patch. Jaskier barely registered her before his eyes were drawn away.

Geralt. 

He lay at Yennefer’s side, bloody and coated in unidentifiable filth. His hand still clasped the hilt of his silver sword, now dark with blood and viscera. His eyes were open.

Jaskier had seen enough of death to recognize it in the face of the man he loved.

An animal rage seized Jaskier’s throat. He screamed, or maybe snarled. He reached out, half thinking to launch himself through the portal with a song on his lips and fury in his heart.

Yaga’s hands clapped together and Geralt disappeared.

“Offer a bargain or leave alone,” she reminded him. Her voice was cold and sharp. Her smile was kind.

Jaskier’s nails dug into his palms until his skin split. Blood welled out of the wounds and Yaga lifted her head. Her nostrils flared. 

He imagined how it would feel to take the knife from his boot and drive it into her throat.

“You’ve seen my Truth, you know my soul; you know I follow where he goes. Ask for your deed and treat me fair. I’ll deny no boon to keep him here.”

At this, Yaga’s tongue flicked out and traced the pale seam of her lips. “Indeed you set his value high, to offer nothing to deny. The task I set you then, is this: 'tis you who calls him back from mist.”

She vanished before Jaskier could muster a response. The scent of her faded from the air and the forest seemed to echo in her absence. An wolf howled in the distant darkness.

Jaskier turned into the bushes and emptied his stomach. He shook so badly it took him two tries to stand. His cheeks were wet with tears and his hair felt matted with sweat.

Roach trotted to him as he stumbled back into the meadow. He clutched at her mane for balance. Panic seized his lungs and his vision faded to blurry gray. “No wonder I didn’t feel the wards,” he gasped into her warm hair.

She lipped at his bloody hand and he pushed her away. It would take him long enough to saddle the horses and find Baba Yaga’s hut. Urgency hung in the air. 

After all, bargains such as these most often broke at dawn.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: Description of corpses - apparent character death; vomiting
> 
> Please don't hate me! For the end or for the poetry. Though I have definitely missed writing poetry. I was way too lazy to regulate the meter. So sorry for any readers whose poetic passion is offended.
> 
> In spite of the fact that I just upped the chapter total, I am sticking closely to my outline. Possibly for the first time in my entire life. Whatever spirit of organization has possessed me, I heap blessings upon you.
> 
> Take care and stay safe out there, everyone.


	6. Thrice Proven

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A hundred protests hung on Julian’s tongue. He wanted to argue, to alter the bargain, to beg for the Staryk to leave him be.
> 
> “So be it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger Warning - See end notes for details

When Julian awoke, Zofia was tucked into his side like a barn cat. She hadn’t snuck into his rooms since her nursery days. More accurately, he hadn’t allowed her to sneak into his rooms since he had begun issuing invitations elsewhere. 

He tried to slip out without waking her, but she clung to him obnoxiously and he nearly tumbled head first to the floor when she refused to release his sleeve. She woke when he cursed and followed him blearily from his rooms to the kitchens. The servants, idle in the afternoon lull, gawped at them from the edges of the room as they ate. 

Julian had planned to hide in the kitchens - it was baking day and the cook’s apprentice was easily distracted by a bit of harmless flirting - but the silence was unnerving. When the milkmaid shattered her pitcher at meeting his gaze, he and Zofia made a hasty escape.

The whispers that filled the kitchen in their absence were deafening.

Julian - and Zofia, who dogged his footsteps like a second shadow - haunted the house until dusk. They moved from room to room alternately seeking company and solitude, finding neither. 

The servants refused to interact with Julian, for all they seemed determined to keep him under constant watch. His mother wept when she saw him through the window and the Viscount had confined himself to his office. Zofia suggested visiting Albin, but the thought of braving the village made him feel ill. Deep in his breast lingered a sour anxiety that perhaps Albin wouldn’t  _ want _ to see him, now that he was Staryk-touched. 

He fetched his lute from his rooms, but found that between his sore fingers and his melancholy, he hadn’t the heart to play it. It remained a comforting weight against his back as they circled the house again, and again, and again.

Sunset found the two of them standing hand-in-hand at the gate, watching the thrushes flock.

“You could run,” Zofia whispered, echoing Julian’s thoughts. “You’d be a good bard.”

In his head it had seemed a promising possibility. Given voice, the dream grew hollow in the winter air.

“What’s a few dozen miles to a Staryk?” Julian asked bitterly.

The silver road flashed between the trees of the orchard as if to prove his point. Julian glanced back over his shoulder, half-hoping to see his parents, his friends, or even the servants at his back.

They stood alone.

Zofia squeezed his fingers. “Albin should be here,” she said as they watched the deer-creature step out from between the trees.

“Don’t,” he warned softly. “It doesn’t help anything.”

The Staryk Lord approached and Julian released Zofia’s hand. He pushed her back and a little behind him, stepping forward to meet the Staryk. This time there was no swaddled babe-in-arms. The deer-creature pulled a sledge with an unmistakable burden.

Julian wrapped his arms around himself and made only the most perfunctory of bows.

The Staryk paused a moment, glaring down his long nose at Julian with a disdain so familiar as to be nearly human, even on that shifting Winter face. “A second soul recalled by dawn or else be turned to ice yourself,” he declared, unbinding the sledge from his steed’s harness and dropping the lead lines to the ground.

“Wait!” Julian cried when the Staryk made to leave. “You obviously don’t want me to succeed. Why did you offer me… that? You could have just promised a chest of riches, or a Staryk lute, or-or  _ anything _ .”

The Staryk snarled, “and by making poor return, accept your magic as a gift?” 

“That isn’t--”

“You bargained fairly for the work. The consequences are your own concern.” He wheeled the deer and seemed to vanish in a shower of loose powder and ice.

Zofia crept forward as the snow settled and peered at the body on the sledge. It was shrouded in silk of bright ivory, Julian would have mistaken it for white if it weren’t lain against the unforgiving brilliance of the snow. “I don’t think we can carry it to the ice house without help,” she judged.

Julian didn’t allow himself to pause. They were both bundled warmly enough. “Then we’ll do it here. Help me tip it out.”

He hadn’t thought the Staryk aged, at least not to the eyes of mortals, but there was no mistaking the years accumulated in the jagged, icy edges of the corpse laid out in the snow. Julian wondered what had killed him. 

The compressions were harder on an adult than they had been on Zofia and the infant. Julian threw his entire back into it, pushing the Staryk deeper into the hard-packed snow. One-two and again. One-two and again.

“What will you sing?” Zofia asked, tucking her hands into her muffler. Already they were red and chapped with cold.

He barely had the breath to begin his song, let alone answer his sister. Raggedly he picked up the tune for the harvest festival. It was eerie, sung without accompaniment on a windy winter night, but the beat matched the rhythm of his pushes and warmed him with the memory of celebration.

One-two and again. He wondered if Albin’s father was keeping him away from Julian because of the Staryk. One-two and again. One-two and again. He wondered if  _ his _ father was keeping Albin away because of the Staryk. One-two and again. 

The wind was picking up as the stars began to emerge and glitter in the vast darkness. He didn’t know how long he had been working. He had run through the song six times at least, and there were many verses. His shoulders ached and his lower back threatened to give out every time he came up from a push.

Zofia’s hands covered his, but he didn’t let her take his place. She wouldn’t have the strength. The warmth of her was painful and fleeting.

It felt as though the Staryk’s chest had cracked beneath his hands. He pushed and fell into the lake -  _ reaching, reaching for her hair, her dress -  _ and he lifted himself up -  _ breathing cold air, burning with terror -  _ and fell again. One-two. One-two.

A cold hand, even colder than the biting wind, gripped his wrist. Julian looked down into the Staryk’s fathomless eyes and wept.

Zofia had gone to fetch more blankets. She returned, a cowed guardsman at her heels, to find Julian and the Staryk sitting together on the sledge. They did not touch, but the Staryk had turned to shelter Julian from the worst of the wind and he watched them approach with wary hostility.

“It’s alright, it’s just my sister,” Julian croaked, reaching out to accept the furs that the guardsmen extended to him. The man’s eyes did not leave the Staryk. He looked gray with fear. Julian offered a blanket to the Staryk and shrugged when it was pushed aside. 

“What’s the hour?” Julian asked, glancing between his three companions.

The guardsman, astonishingly, gathered himself to answer. “Only four hours past sunset, my lord.”

“You’re getting faster,” Zofia said. She appeared cheered by this, though Julian felt nothing but dread.

The Staryk turned his face to the wind. “My Lord comes,” he told them. His voice cracked like a mountain pine, ancient and proud. The silver road shone from the forest. The Staryk turned and smiled down at Julian. “Va fáill. Until we meet again.”

He strode away under his own power, seeming to glide above the snow drifts that shifted in the darkness. The moon and stars shone down upon his pale hair and shifting Winter skin until he was beneath the forest boughs and cloaked in shadows.

The guardsman carried Julian back to his rooms. He was asleep before he’d even thought to remove his boots.

***

Julian awoke to his mother’s hands stroking his hair. The feeling was unmistakable, though he could not recall the last time she’d shown such simple affection.

“It’s dusk,” she murmured when he stretched and at last persuaded his eyes to open. “You need to eat and dress.”

He peered around her at the Viscount’s valet, hovering near the door with a sullen, anxious scowl. He held what Julian instantly recognized as the best of the Viscount’s wardrobe. Rich velvet brocade and elegant winter wools draped over his arms, promising warmth, comfort, and guaranteed attention wherever he went. In any other circumstances Julian might have rejoiced.

“I don’t want to wear that,” he croaked, balking at the sound. “They’ll never fit anyway.”

His mother pressed a cup of hot water, honey, and lemon into his hands. He sipped it greedily, savoring the rare citrus tang. 

“You are my son, and the son of the Viscount de Lettenhove.” His mother reached out and stroked his hair again, her hands were steady. Her eyes were rimmed red, but they were dry as they met his. “I will not send you to a foreign king’s court in last year’s rags. We made them over as you slept.”

Julian shrank back into his pillows. “You don’t think they’ll kill me?”  _ You don’t think I’ll fail? _ He asked with his eyes, biting his tongue to keep the words from spilling out and betraying him.

“My dearest son,” the Viscountess sighed, pressing her delicate hands to his cheeks, “I have never known you to give up on any challenge. Even those that ought never to have come to you.”

He recalled, with sudden clarity, the sparring lessons that began shortly after he stepped between Albin and the village bullies as a child. At the time, he thought the lessons prodigious good luck. Now, he wondered if the Viscount and Viscountess had been less ignorant of his childish problems than he’d assumed. 

“Even if--” he turned away, unable to meet her eyes. “Even if I don’t fail, I’ll still be gone. He said eternity. I don’t- I don’t think I’ll come back from this, Mama.” The endearment felt awkward on his tongue, grown unfamiliar with disuse. 

His mother wiped a thumb beneath his eye, catching the tears that formed there. “You will come back to us. I am your mother. I know this.”

“And if I don’t?” Julian asked, hating himself for pushing but wanting - needing - her to understand. “How long will you wait? Lettenhove needs an heir, the line of succession--”

“Will sort itself out. It will pass to you, or to Zofia’s husband when she weds, or to Zofia if the Viscount can arrange it. When you return, it will be your home no matter who bears the title.”

“It would be easier if I died,” Julian whispered. 

His mother shook him slightly. “No! Don’t speak like this!”

Julian jerked away. “At least you’d have a body to bury when you mourn me!”

“You think that would be easier for me?” She was crying now, and every tear that dripped down her cheek felt like a dagger in Julian’s heart. “You think I want to walk the lands of my forefathers and know that my son was cold and dead beneath my feet? I would rather spend every day of the rest of my life hoping for a glimpse of the Staryk road, missing you with each beat of my aching heart. How could I even for a moment prefer the burden of knowing that you are gone beyond all hope and reach?”

He wept too, and when the Viscount arrived to call them to supper he found them curled on the bed, clutching each other in misery. The poor valet had laid out the clothing and left, though neither Julian nor the Viscountess could recall when he had gone.

The Viscount helped Julian dress in his stead. His large hands were remarkably steady on the fastenings.

“It fits you well.” He turned Julian to the mirror and they examined his reflection together. The doublet and trousers were a rich blue with silver brocade across his chest and sleeves. They fit him well, emphasizing his slender waist and broad shoulders that may one day develop into real muscle. He did not look like a child in his father’s clothes. He looked like the son of a Viscount.

“Thank you, Father,” Julian whispered, meeting the Viscount’s eyes in the mirror. 

The Viscount gripped his shoulders and bent to press a gentle kiss against his head. He made as if to speak, cleared his throat, then patted Julian’s shoulders and left the room.

Julian gathered his lute and followed.

It was a quiet meal. Zofia curled beneath Julian’s arm, barely picking at her own plate. He struggled to manipulate his utensils but made no move to shift her. The Viscount and Viscountess sat across from them rather than the head and foot of the long table. Their faces were wan and drawn as they watched their children eat.

The knock on the door was almost a relief.

Julian stood and slung his lute over his shoulder. He led his family to the front door and opened it as they stood back, watching him.

The Staryk Lord stood at the stoop, glaring down at Julian. Behind him, an entire company of Staryk knights encircled a sledge. Their silver armor glittered in the fading twilight.

“A third soul recall before the dawn or else be turned to ice. Succeed,” the Staryk Lord bit out, “and claim eternity among my noble court.”

A hundred protests hung on Julian’s tongue. He wanted to argue, to alter the bargain, to beg for the Staryk to leave him be. 

“So be it.”

The Staryk rode away and, as if this were a signal, all of Lettenhove slunk through the gate. They kept to the edges of the courtyard, watching Julian in utter silence. Julian searched their faces until he found Albin in the crowd. 

His friend didn’t meet his eyes.

Julian blinked back tears and flung himself out into the cold. He strode to the body shrouded in pale gray silk and grasped the shoulders. “Help me,” he called, deliberately keeping his eyes fixed on his burden. “I need to put it on the ground.”

For a moment, no one moved. Then the snow shifted beneath approaching feet and familiar hands gripped the Staryk’s ankles.

They lifted together and settled their burden in the snow and ice. Julian couldn’t stop himself from looking up at Albin as they straightened.

“Thank you,” he said, his voice cracking.

Albin offered a watery smile.

Julian knelt and pulled the shroud from the Staryk. This one was neither child nor elder. Youthful, perhaps, as the Staryk measured such things. He was fine boned and lovely, even in the rigidity of death. The ghostly pallor of his face, twisted as though he’d died in agony, was nearly as sickening as the living ice of the Staryk Lord. 

Driven by instinct, Julian looked further. There, at the Staryk’s belly, was a gaping wound. Bloodless, but no less horrifying for being clean. 

“Pack it with snow,” Albin said, leaning over to examine the wound. “Here, I’ll start compressions. You sing.” He reached out and squeezed Julian’s hand, just once, and then they both began to work.

Julian packed the wound with snow, compressing and re-packing it again and again until he could fit no more. Uncertainty grew with each new handful he pressed into the Staryk’s side, but he didn’t falter. As he worked, he sang.

This song was one he’d learned from Martyn only a week past, though it felt as though years had gone by since they had sung together in Julian’s rooms. It was a battle march, sung by the czar’s army when they marched out to make war. Martyn had seen them go once. He had described the sound as a rockfall, or the thundering of river rapids. A hundred thousand men marching along a cobbled street, singing of glory.

There wasn’t any glory here. Julian packed ice into the Staryk as Albin compressed his chest to Julian’s rhythm. One-two and again. One-two and again.

They switched, then switched again, knowing without words when the other was tiring. Julian looked up once and met Zofia’s eyes over Albin’s shoulder. She was shaking like a leaf and her mouth moved silently as though she tried to match his song, but her words came too slow.

He didn’t look up again.

When true night fell, the courtyard torches were lit. Julian could smell the flasks that passed among the villagers, clear vodka and mulled wine to warm them. No one offered drink to him or Albin. No one spoke.

The stars emerged, and the moon rose gravid in the sky. They switched, then switched again. The moon began to set. In the east, the sky began to brighten.

Julian twisted, still singing, and looked through the gates to the sliver of forest visible from where he knelt. There, between the trees, there was a flash of silver.

Horror burned through him, potent and heady. He turned back to the Staryk, pushed Albin aside, and slapped the knight across the face. A gasp rippled through the courtyard, but Julian barely heard it.

He was entirely focused on the sudden rise and fall of the Staryk’s chest.

“It is done,” he called, sensing rather than seeing when the Staryk Lord and his company entered the courtyard. “He lives.”

The knight was blinking awake, taking in Julian and the courtyard full of humans. He sat up, nodding to his lord with regal splendor.

“So be it,” the Staryk Lord bit out. “You have won eternity among my noble court.” 

Julian stood on shaking legs, but before he could gather himself to respond, the Staryk knight he had revived stood with him. Frigid hands gripped his aching shoulders and lifted. Before he could even think to protest, he was riding pillion upon the Staryk Lord’s beast.

“Wait,” Julian cried, his voice cracked from use and fear. “Wait!”

They were already wheeling to leave.

Julian stretched out his hand, reaching for his parents, for Albin, for Zofia. His sister reached out too, lifting her skirts and running. She screamed his name.

He thought he screamed back. He must have. No part of him could bear this quietly. His ears rang with panic, drowning out all else.

And then the snow beneath them was hard and silver. They ran the Staryk road and left Lettenhove behind. It faded, and with it went the sunlight and his sister’s tear-streaked face.

They rode in darkness for a time, and then a mountain grew on the horizon. It glittered in the dim light, clear and serene like a mountain of glass.

Julian gripped the strap of his lute - his last piece of home - and vowed that the Staryk walls would not hold him forever.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: Descriptions of bodies and death; brief suicidal sentiments (it would be better if I died); discussions of grief and grieving
> 
> Va fáill: Farewell, spoken in Elder. Pulled from the Witcher Wiki
> 
> I have been dreading writing this chapter since I outlined this story. So much happens!! Hopefully the pacing was good without throwing anyone off.
> 
> As always, kudos and comments are always appreciated. I delight in them, honestly. Thank you so much for your support and interest in my story :)


	7. Laid Bare

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “The dead keep nothing,” Geralt responded. Jaskier imagined he could see the white of his hair in the flashes of moonlight that filtered through the trees. 
> 
> “Then I’ll keep you.”
> 
> “You’ll have to find me first.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger Warning - See end notes

It was too dark to ride. Jaskier tore one of his chemises into long strips and wrapped them around a green branch. It lit poorly, but the flame was bright enough to see where he put his feet.

He loaded Roach with Geralt’s saddlebags, which held his potions, and the steel sword the Witcher had left behind. He left the remaining gear in the clearing, already anticipating Geralt’s scolding when he discovered the absence.

Roach and the gelding followed him into the dark with anxious compliance. Their ears swiveled and the whites of their eyes showed as the trees rattled in the wind. Jaskier hummed a walking song, strained to minor key with his own fear, as he pulled them faster than was wise.

No one knew exactly where Baba Yaga dwelt. In fact, the general ignorance was uncanny. No near-omnipotent being could revel in the Toussaint hinterlands without some poor fool stumbling across her dwelling place and spreading the warning. Not unless there was powerful magic involved.

Experience, whether fortunate or otherwise, had lent Jaskier some skill in identifying Fae magic. It lingered in the back of his throat like iron and blood, cloying and painfully reminiscent of the djinn. 

Even as he followed the scent of blood in the air, worrying the horses’ leads in clammy hands, he tried to imagine that this was any other monster hunt. He could almost see Geralt, stalking in the darkness just beyond the torch’s reach.

_ “Do you want every creature in these woods to know exactly where we are?” _ His imaginary Geralt growled.

Jaskier hummed a little softer, glancing into the underbrush with a shiver. “You’ll keep me safe,” he whispered, breaking the rhythm of his song to lend weight to his words. He repeated himself, tearing his eyes from the woods and focusing on the path. The phrase felt like a talisman, rubbed smooth with faith and use. “You’ll keep me safe.”

_ “The dead keep nothing,”  _ Geralt responded. Jaskier imagined he could see the white of his hair in the flashes of moonlight that filtered through the trees. 

“Then I’ll keep you.”

_ “You’ll have to find me first.” _

***

The glass mountain wasn’t cold, though winter hung thick in the air and the ice was thick.

They rode through the front gates without much fanfare. The echoing clatter they made in the cavernous hall summoned servants, each of them dressed in the same silvery-gray silk of the Staryk babe’s shroud. Julian slid to the ground when the knight he had raised from the dead, icy face expressionless, extended a beckoning hand.

The Staryk Lord dismounted after him, barely even deigning to glance in his direction before sweeping across the hall and exiting through a door that Julian swore had not existed the moment before. Only a gentle shove to his shoulder indicated that he was meant to follow.

They traveled up narrow, twisting steps of stone. The Staryk Lord and his knights, Julian, the once-dead knight who still wore his shroud like a cloak, and a small hoard of gray-clad servants. Julian kept his eyes on the heels of the Staryk before him and tried to imagine that he was somewhere, anywhere else.

He nearly collided into the Staryk’s back when the entire party stopped abruptly at a narrow landing. Only the grip of the shrouded knight saved him from collision.

The Staryk Lord swept his hand out and threw open a door. Julian peered warily inside. The rooms were small and bare, cramped even by Lettenhove standards, and glittering with ice.

“You will stay here,” the Staryk Lord bit out, rigid with anger that Julian didn’t fully understand.

“I don’t--”

Another shove planted firmly between his shoulder blades sent him stumbling inside. The door shut, or rather the wall melted closed as if no door had ever been, and Julian was trapped. 

For a time, he paced the edges of his rooms. He traced the contours of the ice, looking for hidden seams that might indicate where the Staryk had hidden the doors, but he found nothing. There was a small washroom, a desk and chair, a bed, and little else.

Impulsively, Julian shrugged out of the lute’s carrying strap and stood on the bed. He took the buckle and dug a single tally into the ice of the wall. 

He looked around at the empty walls around him and wondered how many tallies it would take to count eternity.

Julian lay in bed and stared unseeing at the single tally mark. The passing of time registered only in the ache of unmoving muscles and the beginnings of hunger snapping in his belly. He almost wished that the ice would drip, or voices would sound from the halls, some common noise to break the monotony of silence. His hands clutched the neck of his lute, muting the strings against the board as he considered the prospect of music with both dread and longing.

When the door opened, he was on his feet almost before he had registered the movement.

“So we meet again.” The ancient Staryk, the only one who had spoken to Julian, appeared less fragile in the Winter of the mountain than he had laid out in death. He stepped into Julian’s room and gestured for servants to follow. 

The servants filled the closet with pale silk finery: yards upon yards of ivory with silver buttons and embroidery. Once they had divulged their burdens, they left Julian and the ancient Staryk alone.

Julian offered a shallow bow, completely at a loss. “Greetings, sir.”

“Our Lord convenes the court. He will present you to our peers,” the Staryk gestured at the clothing draped across Julian’s bed. “You must dress.”

“My own clothing suits me.”

“You cannot greet the Staryk court in mortal garb,” the Staryk said. His expression, though alien to Julian’s human eyes, seemed disapproving. “You are a Staryk noble, blessed and bargained.”

Julian shook his head. “I am a mortal.”

“You can sing the dead to life. You are a Staryk noble.”

“I can’t,” Julian confessed. He lowered himself to perch on the edge of his bed. The Staryk fetched the chair and sat with him. “I can’t -- it wasn’t my singing. I didn’t, I don’t have magic.”

The Staryk sighed, a sound like wind across a clear lake. “A power claimed and challenged and thrice carried out is true; the proving makes it so.* Perhaps you were not born with magic, but you have had the courage to claim it for your own. It is yours, and it will keep you until the end of days.”

A shiver of dread worked itself loose from Julian’s shoulders and stuttered down his spine. “I don’t want it,” he whispered. 

The Staryk’s eyes were deep and dark. Julian felt very small beneath his unwavering gaze. “Destiny does not fall lightly on those who challenge Her,” he said at last. “It is wise for you to be afraid.”

“This isn’t my destiny,” Julian denied. “I am destined to be a Viscount, or, or a bard. This is all just some accident, I’m not--”

“You may challenge Destiny as you like, but it takes a far greater magic than even yours to claim to know Her. Build knowledge in Truth: you are a Staryk noble; you challenged Destiny and won; you sing the dead to life. All that follows is shaped by this.”

Julian bowed his head. He thought of his father’s hand on his shoulder, of his mother’s fingers in his hair, of his sister’s head upon his knee. This could not be his destiny. He defied the fates to tell him so. 

“I will wear the white,” he conceded.

The Staryk stood. “The day may come that you are grateful for the heavy hand of Destiny.”

“Not this day,” Julian said bitterly.

“No. Not this day.”

***

Abruptly, the trees gave way to an open clearing. The gentle lapping of waves lingered in the air and the scents of blood, pine, and lake water mingled on Jaskier’s tongue. Across the clearing, a squat hut huddled in a dry riverbed. The windows glowed with orange firelight, ominously welcoming.

The hut was ancient. It had been painted once, Jaskier thought, or at least treated against the weather. That had worn away until only a few worn strips of paint clung stubbornly to the rot-dark trim. 

Strange shadows leaned against the corners, like cloaked giants lounging in the darkness. Jaskier flinched back from them, startling the horses, then peered closer. They were legs, not giants, thin and knobbled like a rooster with spurs that jutted out in dangerous, curving points. 

He wished there was something in his stomach left to purge.

The door creaked open as he approached. Jaskier spared one glance back at Roach and the gelding, loosely bound to a tree branch near the lake, and stepped inside.

His eyes were drawn inexorably to Geralt. 

The Witcher was covered with blood and muck. He faced the door and his yellow eyes, milky and unfocused, pierced Jaskier like a lance.

Jaskier had never seen Geralt look so small. 

A prickle grew on the back of his neck. He pushed aside the instinct, honed by years on the Path, urging him to spin and face the danger. Instead, he dropped to his knees and dragged himself forward across the rough-hewn floor.

His hands shook as he gently wiped the blood from Geralt’s face. The pads of his fingers traced the familiar lines and planes, pale and slack beneath the filth. He had not realized the vitality contained in the minutia of his friend’s expression until all movement ceased.

“So you’ve come to bargain fair, for one whose heart is kept elsewhere. Child, you sell your gift too low; to play for both a friend and foe.”

Her voice, which had blessedly faded in his memory, grated like metal on stone. He resisted the childish impulse to press his palms to his ears, and instead began to shakily push Geralt’s hair back into order. 

Jaskier spared a glance for Yennefer. She was disheveled, though not to the level that Geralt was, and her face was twisted in death as though the magic that killed her - and it must have been magic, for there were no wounds that he could see - had been agonizing. 

He realized with chilling horror that he had not bargained for Yennefer’s life. His panic had focused him completely on Geralt, and the witch’s death had been less than an afterthought. 

If asked before this blighted journey had begun, Jaskier would have cheerfully toasted to Yennefer’s eventual demise. Looking at her death-glazed violet eyes, he found that he mourned her. Not the hold she had on Geralt. No, never that.

He mourned her laughter, though. 

“Mother, my gift is mine to share; I see no foe, just friends in a pair. My heart, as you say, is wanting and weak; I beg you: allow me to collect all I seek.” He winced, even as the words left his mouth, regretting the phrasing. He didn’t want to beg for anything. If he only had more time to  _ think! _

Baba Yaga circled Jaskier. He kept his eyes on Geralt and Yennefer, listening to the creak of ancient floorboards and trying to pinpoint where she walked.

When she reached the fire, she threw a long shadow across the three of them. It stretched and shrank, flickering with more than just the inconsistency of the light.

“Ample time left for bargains remade, but hark to the dawn lest your debt goes unpaid. For now you will rest and take supper with me, not often I offer hospitality.” There was a rattle, like the lifting of a stewpot lid, and the stench of meat and earth wafted through the hut. 

Jaskier gagged, rallied himself, and gagged again. “Your offer is most rare and generous, it grieves me now to show such temperance. Until my friends may sup with me, with them my appetite will be.” 

She replaced the lid and the smell, blessedly, dissipated. Jaskier breathed once more.

“Sit at my feet and rest your head, and you shall sing to raise your dead. When they from mist have been reclaimed; their freedom’s price will be your Name.”

***

The Staryk court was silent. Julian all but clung to the coattails of the ancient Staryk who guided him through the crowd. He could feel the eyes that followed him, judged him and found him wanting.

When they reached the king’s dais, the Staryk stopped. Julian edged forward until they stood elbow-to-elbow, facing the Staryk Lord.

The Staryk Lord rose to his feet without so much as a glance at Julian. “I present to you one who has claimed a place in our court.”

The softest tittering, like chiming icicles, followed this pronouncement. When silence fell again, Julian gathered his courage and prepared to speak.

The ancient Staryk’s elbow knocked sharply against his ribs, driving the air from his lungs. As Julian gasped for breath, the Staryk gripped his arm and firmly drew him back among the crowd.

“Why did you do that?” Julian gasped when he could speak again. “I was--”

“You planned to initiate a bargain before the court,” the Staryk finished. “You wished for freedom.”

Julian scowled. “Yes.”

“No. It is not the time for bargains, and that is not the way. Our lord would have been within his rights to cast aside your case forever, if you had thus disrespected him.”

“I don’t understand,” Julian whispered when they reached the furthest wall and he no longer felt quite so exposed. “You’re helping me?”

The Staryk tilted his head slightly, not meeting Julian’s eyes. “For now.”

His expression was flustered rather than cunning, or so it seemed, at least. Mentally noting to return to the topic at a later time, Julian pressed on. “So that’s it? He didn’t even introduce me.”

The ancient Staryk blanched. “Our lord would never break our trust or share our Names, should we choose to gift them to his keeping.” 

Julian considered this. “Then what do you call each other, if you don’t share your names?”

Reluctantly, the Staryk considered his question. “Titles serve as an address for most acquaintances. Though friends may gift each other lesser names,” he said at last.

A bell rang and a flurry of servants rushed through the room. They laid out a table near the dais, filling it with frost-rimmed fruit, pickled fish, and uncooked venison sliced thin and salted. When the servants were gone, the nobles descended to investigate the offerings. 

The ancient Staryk waited until the first wave of nobles had finished before leading the way to the table. He served Julian himself, picking through the dishes with fastidious care, though Julian could see no difference between the selections he chose and those he cast aside.

Once they had retreated with their plates, Julian resumed his interrogation. “When  _ can _ I bring my case before him?”

“When you know how to barter, and when you understand the value of the power that you offer.”

Julian swallowed thickly. He didn’t want to understand the value of his power. He would honestly prefer to forget it existed. “Will you teach me?”

The ancient Staryk paused, venison suspended before his mouth, and closed his eyes. “And in exchange?”

“A song. I will write you a song if you will teach me how to bargain for my freedom,” Julian hesitated, weighing his odds, and added, “...Nauczyciel.”

“Ah,” Nauczyciel sighed. 

Thus named, the crags of his face were not so imposing, nor the depth of his eyes so frightening. His features were made familiar to Julian’s eyes, though the alien nature of his beauty was objectively unchanged. 

At last, Nauczyciel said, “your first lesson, then: a bargain is accepted when negotiations cease.”

“So you will help me?”

“Yes. Your second lesson, young Feainnewedd, is that names - lesser, greater, middling - have power. Be careful whom you share yours with.”

***

Jaskier kept his eyes trained on the ground as he crawled to Baba Yaga’s feet. He sat with his lute cradled in his lap and eased his head to rest on her sharp knee.

The scent of her - bile, blood, and sweet spring rot - threatened to choke him. He swallowed it down and flinched when her rough hand caressed his head. Her ragged nails caught and pulled at his sweat-damp hair.

With shaking hands, he strummed the opening chords of The White Wolf and began to sing.

He liked to pretend to himself that he could not remember the last time he had used his gift. In truth, every life he gave was branded in his memory. Each soul was a golden chain in his heart, bound by his music against the ravages of Destiny. 

Geralt and Yennefer were brighter than most. Jaskier coaxed them from the mist with the notes of his lute and the tremor of his voice. They came to his call, already tangled and knotted, bound together in a way that made his throat seize and his heart ache.

Baba Yaga’s nails scratched his scalp. Jaskier swallowed back his pain and played on, lingering over the binding.

Yennefer was first. She had died after Geralt, he guessed, and the Chaos she had used in her final moments still echoed within her. He bound her to her body and lightning crackled at her fingertips.

Baba Yaga snapped and the energy faded. Yennefer’s cheeks pinked as her eyes drifted closed. She slept, and Jaskier turned to Geralt.

The Witcher was harder. He was as stubborn as he had ever been in life, and reluctant to return from the seductive peace of death. Peace from scorn and hatred, from killing, blood, and battle. Death was beyond both pain and choice, and mortality burned with both.

Jaskier tangled his fingers in the melody, stretched the chain of his music around Geralt’s soul and bound him to the mortal plane even as he wept.

When Geralt’s chest rose in an aching gasp, Baba Yaga sighed. Her fingers snapped once more, and the Witcher’s golden eyes drifted shut, unseeing. The final notes of the song hung in the air.

“So you have wandered betwixt and between, I offer you now a respite unseen. The world has been cruel and will be again; for such power as yours, beyond mortal ken.”

Still aching with the burn of high magic, Jaskier looked up into Baba Yaga’s eyes.

She watched him implacably. Her cheeks, plump with youth and creviced with age, glittered in the light as tears rolled unashamedly to fall upon her lap. 

_ Oh, _ Jaskier thought,  _ oh. She’s lonely, too. _

He pushed himself up on shaking arms until he knelt at her feet. Keeping his eyes fixed upon hers, ignoring the vertigo that washed over him like tidal waves, he raised her hands to his lips and kissed her filth-coated palms. 

“My Name,” he whispered, “is Julian Alfred Pancratz, called Jaskier, called Feainnewedd. All that I am, all that I was, and all that I ever shall be is laid bare before you.”

Baba Yaga breathed deeply, drinking in the syllables of his Name. Her lips moved, and though no sound escaped, Jaskier felt the pull of its power on her tongue.

“All that you are, all that you were, all that you ever shall be,” she repeated softly, savoring his words. At last, she sighed. “The bargain struck, the deal done, your freedom has been fairly won.”

Jaskier bent and rested his forehead against her knee, gasping for air at the sudden release of tension he barely realized he’d been carrying. They stayed there, frozen in a gruesome tableau: Fae and bard, Witcher and witch, until the dawn light began to seep across the floor.

Baba Yaga’s calloused hand clasped Jaskier’s chin and raised his head. She seemed to weigh him in her palm, shrewdly evaluating his red-rimmed eyes and tear-pinked nose. “Your heart was broken in the mountain of glass, and now again at mountain pass. If you remain in mortal coil, then Destiny repeats your toils.”

Jaskier let out a near-hysterical bark of laughter and tried to muster some response. “The winter path is closed to me, and you hold all I am to be. What other toil could exist, what dagger now could Destiny twist?”

She shook her head and leaned down. Jaskier flinched, but her grip on his chin held him fast. Baba Yaga’s lips pressed against his forehead, burning hot. The sensation dripped across his scalp and down to his toes like ice water, setting his nerves alight. He opened his mouth to cry out.

And the darkness claimed him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: Description of dead bodies
> 
> *Direct quote from Spinning Silver
> 
> Nauczyciel: Polish for teacher/master - /na.uˈt͡ʂɨ.t͡ɕɛl/
> 
> Feainnewedd: Elder for Sun-Child; the name for a specific flower, though the flower isn't relevant to this story.
> 
> I'm still not sure if the split chapter works here, but I wrote and rewrote this about three times without producing anything better, so here you go! Please let me know what you think. Also, major kudos if you find any Julian/Jaskier mixups :)


	8. Waking Up

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Fuck.” Geralt snapped a twig and threw it into the fire. When Jaskier snuck a glance at him, his face was stony. The muscle in his jaw danced with tension that made Jaskier’s teeth ache in sympathy.
> 
> Yennefer sighed. “You moron.”
> 
> “It was a calculated risk,” Jaskier said, waving his hand in an affectation of airy dismissal. As if there had been any calculation involved.

Jaskier awoke to darkness.

He thrashed blindly, fighting the sudden and inexplicable fear that Baba Yaga had taken his sight. He got as far as staggering to his feet before he registered the silver buttons of his sleeve reflecting the moonlight.

Once standing, he pressed his hand to his chest and tried to slow his racing heart.

He wasn’t at the lake any longer. The grass was long and thick beneath his feet, and he smelled nothing more sinister than fresh air. No water or rot in the wind. Jaskier could make out the ashes of his fire from the night before in the shadows nearby.  _ The night before? _ He wondered, squinting at the saddlebags leaning innocently near the blackened wood. His lute was there, safely covered in his oiled case, up off the ground to protect it from the damp. He might have placed it there himself, as he did each evening on the road.  _ Not longer, surely? _

A groan from behind him served as an effective distraction.

Jaskier stumbled through the grass, half-tripping as he navigated molehills in the dark. He marveled that his ankles had survived the breakneck hike to Yaga’s hut.  _ Destiny, probably _ , he guessed with irritated resignation.

When he registered the stirring lump in the grass as an armored torso, Jaskier fell to his knees and crawled the remaining distance to Geralt’s side.

“Geralt! Thank the gods. Are you alright? Are you hurt?”

Golden eyes, fogged with sleep but miraculously bright, peered up at him. “Jas?”

“Yes, it’s me. I’m here,” he gripped Geralt’s grasping hand and levered his friend up. If he kept his hold on the living flesh of Geralt’s palm for a few seconds longer than may be appropriate, the Witcher was kind enough not to mention it. His other hand fluttered over any part of Geralt it could reach, checking for injuries, relishing the contact.

“Where’s Yen?” Geralt grunted, pinching the bridge of his nose and shuddering.

Jaskier sighed and pulled back. “I don’t know, I just woke up here and--”

“Of course you slept through it.” Geralt pushed himself up, moving a half-degree slower than normal.

“Hey!”

“She was hurt, Jaskier. Help me look.”

Jaskier bit down bitterly on his indignation and followed in Geralt’s wake, peering into the darkness. They spread out some, circling their small corner of the glen with wary steps. Roach and the gelding watched from where they rested near the trees. Their tack had been removed, stacked neatly near their other bags in an unsettlingly kind gesture. 

He didn’t know what to make of it, and immediately resolved to push it from his mind.

Geralt cursed as he stumbled over a loose stone. The sound seemed muted in the sheer vastness of the night. Jaskier watched him scent the air and wondered what he knew. If he remembered Jaskier’s song.

“Did you find Baba Yaga, then?” He asked when the thrashing of the meadow grass finally snapped his last nerve.

Geralt grunted. “Must have. Or she found us. Last thing I remember is Yennefer calling lightning on that fucking cockatrice.”

Jaskier stopped and turned to look at the Geralt-shaped silhouette in bafflement. Geralt kept searching, oblivious. 

“Seriously?” He muttered, kicking savagely at another molehill.

The molehill kicked back and Yennefer lurched to her feet with a snarl. Jaskier shrieked and tripped. He landed badly and knocked all the air from his lungs in one bruising rush.

“ _ You _ ,” she growled, light sparking in her palms and filling the entire clearing as if the noonday sun had risen. “What did you  _ do? _ ”

“Geralt!” Jaskier wheezed. His eyes watered even as he squeezed them shut, and the blackness of his eyelids glittered with aftershocks of light.

“Yen, fuck.” Geralt stumbled forward with his hand up to shield his eyes. “Calm down!”

“I am calm,” Yennefer said. She scowled down at Jaskier, still gasping on the ground. “There’s Fae magic all over him. What did you  _ do _ , Jaskier?”

Faced with her wrath, he folded like damp parchment. “Yes, yes. Alright. Stunning and insanely scary sorceress, I am sufficiently cowed. You can stop with the,” he gestured vaguely at the light around them.

Geralt halted at Jaskier’s side and said, bewildered, “You said you slept through it.”

“I slept, yes,” Jaskier hedged. “Just now. I wouldn’t have said I slept  _ through _ anything, though of course, being asleep, I can’t know what I missed.”

“Did you, or did you not meet Baba Yaga?” Yennefer asked, cutting through his obfuscating with brutal efficiency.

“I did.” Jaskier wiped his streaming eyes and tried not to imagine exactly how awful he looked in the moment. He felt filthy. “A story to be shared, certainly. Very heroic. Perhaps best told over a fire, with food and clean clothing?”

The light winked out, leaving Jaskier blind. The grass rustled as Yennefer strode away and Geralt followed her. He sat, blinking into darkness until his eyes adjusted enough to join them.

Geralt was the one who lit the fire and scrounged in their packs for supplies. It was a meager meal. Jaskier had never finished setting the snare, so they had nothing fresh, and some rodent or other had gotten into their packs. It had taken all the jerky and inexplicably ruined Jaskier’s linseed oil. When Geralt showed him the damage, Jaskier barely had the energy to dramatize his loss. 

_ Another mark against a truly awful day, _ he thought, examining the shredded cork and empty bottle. 

Thankfully, Yennefer had brought groats for her gelding. Jaskier refrained from teasing her for the luxury, storing the knowledge for later encounters. It made a decent porridge, even when Geralt added far too much water to the mix.

Jaskier shared his jar of honey without complaint, though he doled out Yennefer’s portion begrudgingly.

Huddled around the fire, the previous night’s events felt more like a nightmare than real life. The three of them kept the silence as they picked through supper.

Geralt, surprisingly, broke first.

“You said you were asleep when we were returned,” he prompted. 

“I was. I wasn’t asleep when you disappeared, though; and definitely not when Baba Yaga showed up at the camp and asked to bargain for your lives.”

“You bargained with the Fae?” Yennefer asked. Her voice was rich with disbelief.

“No. She asked Roach. Yes, of course I bargained with the Fae.”

Geralt’s knee tapped against his in gentle warning. “Fae bargains are dangerous, Jaskier. Especially for mortals. What did she ask in exchange for us?”

Jaskier considered the question for a long moment, staring at his hands in the flickering firelight. Even after a brief wash and change of clothes, the crescents of his nails were dark with dirt and blood. His fingers felt gritty with the muck he had rubbed from Geralt’s face. 

Past the warmth of oats and honey-sweet lavender, he swore he could still taste the rot of Yaga’s scent in his throat.

“She wanted to hear me sing.”

“Horseshit,” Yennefer snapped. “You don’t get that seeped in magic from a song. What else did you give her?”

Jaskier laughed dryly. “My Name,” he admitted. “I gave her my Name.”

“Fuck.” Geralt snapped a twig and threw it into the fire. When Jaskier snuck a glance at him, his face was stony. The muscle in his jaw danced with tension that made Jaskier’s teeth ache in sympathy.

Yennefer sighed. “You moron.”

“It was a calculated risk,” Jaskier said, waving his hand in an affectation of airy dismissal. As if there had been any calculation involved.

“Jaskier, names mean something different to the Fae,” Geralt explained, voice low and rough. “It isn’t like introducing yourself to--”

“I’m not a child.” Jaskier’s shoulders trembled with tension. “I know what I did.”

“I doubt that,” Yennefer said. “Did you know that Baba Yaga can summon you from any corner of the continent with a word? Any knife in your hand is a weapon to serve her. Any acquaintance,” her eyes flicked to Geralt, “in your company is at her mercy. You are an instrument of her power now, and nothing short of death will set you free.”

“She proved rather succinctly that she was capable of keeping you at her mercy with or without me,” Jaskier pointed out. His mouth was dry and his eyes itched. It felt as though someone had bound stones to his limbs.

“This isn’t funny, Jaskier!” Geralt stood and strode several paces from the fire. He kept his back to them, watching the horses sleep.

A strange, formless guilt washed over Jaskier. He met Yennefer’s eyes over the fire and saw the same guilt mirrored there. They sat for a moment, tension climbing, before she jerked her chin in Geralt’s direction and looked away.

He pushed himself up. Yennefer watched him go without moving, tired and withdrawn.

They stood at the edge of the firelight, staring into the night. Jaskier reached out, unable to stop himself. 

Geralt’s shirt, blessedly clean, was soft with age and use. It caught on the calluses of Jaskier’s palm as he pressed against Geralt’s shoulder. The Witcher ran warm and the heat of his skin, even through a layer of cloth, threatened to overwhelm Jaskier with every breath.

“Talk to me, Geralt.”

“Hmm.”

Jaskier sighed. “Not tonight, darling, please. You know I love your monosyllabic monologues, but I am far too tired to decipher this now. You’ll have to help me.”

Somewhere in the forest a bird called, confused by Yennefer’s brief midnight sun. The chitter of insects and the muted fluttering of bats felt suspended in the moment as Geralt breathed. In, and out.

“You shouldn’t have had to do that.”

Guilt, then. Jaskier could handle guilt

"It’s my Name. It is mine to keep or share as I see fit.”

“You shouldn’t have had to give it to someone like that. Someone who could use it against you.” Geralt’s face was angled away. Jaskier couldn’t even see his profile past the fall of his hair.

Jaskier’s hand fisted in Geralt’s shirt. He pulled, and the Witcher followed his direction with mute pliability until they stood face-to-face. Someone less attuned to the nuances of Geralt’s expressions would have balked at his anger. Jaskier, holding his gaze, was unwavering.

“It was my choice. I made the bargain with eyes wide open, Geralt, whatever Yennefer seems to think. I would do it again.” 

“You won’t.” Geralt’s hands flexed at his sides, gripping air as if searching for the hilts of his swords. 

Jaskier smiled and released Geralt’s shirt, smoothing away the wrinkles he had made. “Yes, well. I won’t deny that I hope I never have to. My poor heart can’t take all this excitement.”

Geralt reached out and gripped the nape of his neck, moving stiffly. “You won’t, Jaskier.”

The hug, whatever Geralt might say, was inevitable. Jaskier leaned into him, burying his face in the Witcher’s shoulder. Geralt smelled of meadow grass, stale water, and sweat mingled with woodsmoke and the faint acidity of Witcher potions. He smelled of living, breathing warmth and Jaskier reveled in it. Geralt’s arms wrapped around him hesitantly at first, and then firm, holding them together.

After long minutes - not enough, never enough - something rustled in the underbrush. Geralt pushed him away, spinning to face the sound with wild eyes.

“It isn’t her,” Yennefer called from her seat at the fire. She kept her eyes trained on the dancing flames. “Just an animal.”

Jaskier shuddered and retreated back to the light. “That’s what you think,” he muttered.

Geralt watched him go. “We should return to town. It’s dangerous to remain here.”

Yennefer agreed with sour grace and they woke the horses. When the camp was packed and the fire doused, she summoned a portal to bring them back to the inn.

The innkeeper was excessively displeased to be woken in the wee hours of the morning. He argued with Yennefer and Geralt as Jaskier, numbed by exhaustion and the nausea of portal travel, leaned heavily against Roach’s withers. 

Geralt glanced over his shoulder and took in Jaskier’s glassy eyes with pinched displeasure. 

Jaskier would never accuse Geralt of using Axii on a hapless townsperson, but little else could explain the man’s sudden capitulation. The stable hands were woken and took the horses around the back as the innkeeper led them to their rooms.

Outside his door, Jaskier stumbled to a halt. His eyes had been focused on the sway of Geralt’s stride, and he had nearly gone past without thinking. 

“Well, then. This is me,” he called in a stage whisper. It felt awkward, to separate like this. He hated the thought of walls between them. He hated that only his memory would assure him that they lived.

Yennefer and Geralt stopped to look back at him. Geralt glanced at the door to Jaskier’s room, then down at Yennefer, strangely hesitant. Irritation pinched Yennefer’s brows together as she watched him. 

With a huff, she swept out of the hall and left Geralt and Jaskier adrift in her wake.

Geralt sighed. “Sleep well, Jaskier.”

The click of the latch was like a slap. Jaskier flinched and turned to fumble with his own lock and key.

His room smelled faintly of chamomile, even after a full day and night of his absence. Jaskier lowered his bag and lute to the ground near the door and stumbled to bed, shedding his boots as he walked. The sweet embrace of sleep beckoned him and he fell into it with blissful relief.

The dream began the way it always did.

He dreamt of a lake, endless and glimmering. It was frozen, though he could hear the pervasive, rattling echo of waves ebbing and flowing across a rocky beach. Above him, the sky unfolded into eternal night.

Someone called his name.

Jaskier turned, seeking the speaker. In the distance, a silhouette took shape in wavering lines - a sickening winter mirage.

He took a step and found himself standing before Baba Yaga. In his sleeping mind, she appeared as a void, the absence of all shape and light. She towered over him, incomprehensibly vast. He looked upon her darkness and knew it to his bones.

“Feainnewedd,” she said in Nauczyciel’s voice, “you made a poor bargain.”

Jaskier couldn’t speak. He looked down at her feet, peering into the hole she had carved in the ice.

Geralt floated in the water.

His face was as pale as his hair, shadowed with cold and death. His eyes were milky, open and staring up into the night. One hand clutched his silver sword. The other, red with blood, held a lock of dark, curling hair.

Jaskier tried to call out to him, but he made no sound. His throat tightened and he tasted blood.

“A poor bargain,” Baba Yaga repeated.

He fell to his knees, reaching for Geralt. The Witcher sank beneath the surface. Jaskier plunged his arms into the water, seeking his hair, his hands, his shirt. One two, and again.

Ice closed around his shoulders, locking him in place. He flailed, trying to pull out, trying to push in further. He felt the blood pouring from his mouth as he screamed in echoing silence.

Baba Yaga laughed and bent closer to him. The void of her pulled at the edges of him, tangling them together like a knotted chain.

“Jaskier!”

He lashed out, driving up with his knee and out with the point of his elbow. The shadow looming over him jerked back and Jaskier retreated to the corner of his bed, gasping. His throat ached and his eyes were crusted with salt and sleep.

“Fuck.” The intruder groaned from the floor and Jaskier flinched.

“Geralt?”

The candle on the bedside table bloomed to life. Geralt sat up, rubbing his collarbone ruefully. “You had a nightmare. I heard you scream.”

“It happens,” Jaskier admitted shakily. “I’m sorry.”

“Hmm.”

The bed creaked as Geralt joined him, reclining against his pillows as though he owned them. Jaskier waited for him to leave and when he made no move to do so, slowly eased down to lay at his side.

“You don’t have to stay,” he whispered.

Geralt grunted and sat up, extinguishing the candle. When he lay back down, they were pressed together from shoulder to knee. “You’ve never had nightmares like that before,” he murmured.

The darkness wasn’t as oppressive with Geralt as a bulwark between him and the shapeless shadows of the night.

“I don’t like to be alone,” Jaskier confessed. He couldn’t see Geralt, not really. It gave him courage. “I--I get cold.”

“Hmm.”

Jaskier thought to ask about Yennefer, but he was asleep before he could voice the question.

***

He awoke to an empty bed. This was not unusual in and of itself. Even when Geralt allowed him to curl close on the road, the Witcher always got up first. 

This knowledge did not assuage his anxiety.

He found Geralt eventually, saddling Roach in the stables. Jaskier watched him for a moment, an ache building in his breast.

“We’re leaving, then?” He asked, leaning against the stall door. 

Geralt paused his motions, then continued without looking up.

Jaskier pasted on a grin, hoping it wasn’t as strained as he felt. “Excellent! North, I assume. Will we be traveling with the witch, or --”

“Yen left,” Geralt grunted. 

_ Ah, _ Jaskier thought, the pieces clicking together at last. “Well, she probably had important witchy things to do. No matter, I’m sure we’ll meet her again. It’s uncanny, really--”

Geralt interrupted his musing with a growl. “We’ll split ways here.”

“What?”

“There’s no work in the south. I need to travel quickly. You won’t keep up.” He cinched Roach’s girth with impersonal efficiency.

Anger lit through Jaskier like a powder bomb. “Were you even going to tell me? Or were you just going to let me wake up to find you gone?”

“Told the innkeeper to give you a message,” Geralt said. He strapped his swords to Roach’s saddle and checked their draw.

Jaskier scoffed. “What, too much of a coward to say it to my face?”

Geralt didn’t respond. He gripped Roach’s reins and pulled her to the door, pushing Jaskier aside as he opened it.

Jaskier followed him out to the road, stewing in his temper. “Will you tell me where you’re going, at least? I’ll catch up in a few weeks when--”

“Goodbye, Jaskier.”

“Yeah, right. Yep.” Jaskier wanted to grip Geralt’s shoulders and shake, he wanted to throw things, he wanted to sit in the road and scream. “Well then, I think I’ll just swing by Cintra. Stop at court, maybe. I’m sure they have a place for a bard at their midsummer feasts.”

This, at least, earned him a glare. Jaskier glared back.

Geralt mounted Roach and turned her northward, urging her on without another word. Jaskier watched until Witcher and horse disappeared around a twist in the road, then turned and kicked the stable wall as hard as he could muster.

Biting back curses, he limped inside to collect his things.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Groats are a type of oats without hulls, safe for human and equine consumption. I don't actually know if they'd be considered a luxury, but I imagine they're more expensive than the alternative.
> 
> Sorry y'all, no big reveal yet! The willful misdirection continues :) Let me know what you think!


	9. Tallied

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “And if you return, there are those here who would miss you as well.”
> 
> Julian reflected on this. He thought of Nauczyciel who taught him the Staryk mysteries with an unending well of patience. He thought of the Staryk knight who remained unnamed and aloof in the presence of others, but sat for hours to hear Julian’s tales of home. He thought of his servant, brimming with maternal praise and censure in equal measure. And he thought of her daughter who, by the grace of his own power, gleefully shared shining smiles with the world.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger Warning - See end for notes

Julian sat at the edge of the river and pondered the dark ribbon of the icy current. The weight of stone and ice pressed down above him and the flow of air in the cavern offered little comfort. Down at the mountain’s roots, even Staryk magic could not keep the cold at bay.

“You should not linger here.” Nauczyciel’s voice was pitched low, barely audible over the rush of the water.

Julian flicked an ice chip and watched as the current whisked it into darkness. “I came to be alone,” he said. 

It was a token protest. His teacher seemed to know this as he settled at Julian’s side.

“I am sorry, Feainnewedd. I did not mean to hurt you when I spoke as I did.”

“Do you really think my suit is hopeless?” Another ice chip followed the first.

Nauczyciel sighed, a delicate sound even there in the mountain’s raging heart. “To bargain high magic with the king is dangerous. Many take lifetimes to plot such a task. It has not been so long for you, yet.”

“I am not a Staryk. I am not practiced in lingering with indecision like some--” His voice cracked and he cut himself off, wiping his running nose surreptitiously on his wrist.

Nauczyciel was stiff at Julian’s side, all sharp points and hard edges. Julian mustered an apology, sincere in sentiment if not heartfelt in tone.

“You have not wasted your time in indecision. You have learned. Already you have mastered Elder and traditional iambic, you have allies in court--”

“You, a knight, a servant woman and her child, and three lords even more minor than myself. It is hardly an inspiring allyship.”

“You have allies in court,” Nauczyciel continued, unwavering, “and your grasp on your power has grown sure. Three more Staryk live because of you. It will not be so long before you may demand an audience with pride.”

“I don’t feel proud anymore,” Julian admitted. “I would beg if you thought it would help.”

Nauczyciel flinched, and Julian could see his pinched scowl as clearly as if they stood together fully illuminated. “Then this is what you still must learn. Without pride, the bargain will always be hollow.”

“I just want to go home,” Julian admitted. He tipped, pushing his flushed cheek against Nauczyciel’s shoulder.

The old Staryk’s gentle hand rested on his knee. “Is it so bad, living here?” He asked, carefully neutral.

Julian swallowed his knee-jerk response and considered the question. “Not all the time,” he said at last. “But it is not home.”

“You could make a home here. Even when you do not use magic, your music is compelling. It has been many mortal lifetimes since the mountain has hosted a bard.”

“There are people waiting for me in the sunlit world. People who would miss me.”

“And if you return, there are those here who would miss you as well.”

Julian reflected on this. He thought of Nauczyciel who taught him the Staryk mysteries with an unending well of patience. He thought of the Staryk knight who remained unnamed and aloof in the presence of others, but sat for hours to hear Julian’s tales of home. He thought of his servant, brimming with maternal praise and censure in equal measure. And he thought of her daughter who, by the grace of his own power, gleefully shared shining smiles with the world. Her first word was ‘Fen,’ and he called her Sor’ca, his snow-born little sister. 

He placed his hand atop Nauczyciel's. Though darkness cloaked them, he could feel the difference in the texture of their skin. Where his hands were supple and warm, Nauczyciel's were rigid and cold. He could imagine how pink his skin would look against the Staryk’s pale translucency, how dark the hair on his arms would appear.

“I know what the court says of me,” Julian said at last. “Perhaps I have allies, even friends, but I will always be the mortal man in the court of Fae.” 

“You are a Staryk noble,” Nauczyciel retorted quickly. It was the response he always gave when Julian grew maudlin.

Julian snorted. “Such status matters little in the open arena of society.”

"It isn’t just a matter of status. To be a Staryk noble is--” he cut himself off and withdrew his hand from Julian’s grasp.

Julian stared into the darkness where his teacher sat beside him. “Is what?” He demanded. “To be a Staryk noble is what, Nauczyciel?”

“How many tallies have you drawn upon your chamber walls, Feainnewedd?”

A strange, wavering fear bloomed in Julian’s belly. “Three hundred and eighty two.”

“I do not know how such things are counted in the sunlit world,” Nauczyciel admitted. 

“A year, or a little more.”

The rushing in his ears mingled with the rushing water, overpowering all other noise. The numbness of anticipation crept through Julian’s limbs like poison.

“Surely there are tales, in the sunlit world, of how time flows among the Fae?”

“No,” Julian whispered, a blind denial of the unspoken truth, already understood.

Nauczyciel did not reach out to comfort him. A small mercy. Julian felt he might shatter with a single touch.

“Twelve sunlit winters have come and gone since you have joined us.”

The stone steps were slick beneath Julian’s feet. He raced upwards, reckless as he climbed. His lungs screamed for air and the muscles of his thighs burned with each turning of the staircase. 

The faces of servants going about their duties blurred as he fled past them. They watched him go, malicious with supposition.

Julian did not halt until he reached the upper landing. It was a viewing platform at the mountain’s rear, rarely used because it faced the curling smoke and fire of the distant Goblin Realms. Julian, however, cared little for the view.

He collapsed upon the bench and buried his face in his hands.

He had already resigned himself to missing Albin and Oliwia’s wedding, but he had foolishly hoped that he might be home for their first child’s naming day. Now this, too, was stolen from him before he even knew to protest.

Zofia was a woman now, he realized. Twenty, or nearly so. Perhaps she had wed already, married to some northern noble. He may even have nieces or nephews. Would Zofia tell them of their uncle, who sold his soul to the Staryk for a magic he could not understand?

What had his family endured without him? What had he missed? How much of their lives, and how much of his own?

He was twenty-eight, he realized. At twenty-eight, the Viscount had distinguished himself in battle and earned the favor of the czar. He had been a hero. What would he think of his son, who allowed himself to be ruled by winter and despair?

He was wasting his life in uncertainty: a coward and a fool.

The gong rang for supper. Julian remained. 

He sat on the empty balcony and watched the lights and smoke of the Goblin Realms in the distance. There was no sunset to mark the night, nor sunrise to herald the coming day. Only pale winter twilight. The gong rang again for the morning meal, and then for dinner.

When it rang for supper once more, Julian stood. His legs were weak, but he willed them into motion and limped through the mountain halls to the king’s audience chamber.

His mind was cottony with grief and exhaustion. His limbs were clumsy with hunger.

The court had gathered already. They watched him enter, sharp-edged faces rigid with cruel judgement. As untouched by time, Julian realized, as his own.

Perhaps to mortal eyes, he might someday be as monstrous.

The Staryk Lord sat upon his throne, dark eyes fixed upon the middle distance. Julian took a step forward and a hand on his elbow pulled him to a halt.

“I have searched for you.” Nauczyciel’s grip was strong, but Julian shrugged it off.

“I needed time to think,” he said. His voice was gravelly with disuse.

Nauczyciel reached out again, but Julian slipped between two passing nobles and walked on. He did not stop until his toes touched the foot of the dais.

“My Lord, I ask an audience,” he called, projecting his voice to fill the chamber. 

Inescapable.

The Staryk Lord looked down upon him. His eyes roved across Julian’s tousled hair and red-rimmed eyes, they took in the dusty dishevelment of his ivory doublet and the black cave silt trapped beneath his nails. He sneered. 

“Speak, then.”

“I wish for rights to travel to the sunlit world,” Julian spoke frankly, without the trappings Nauczyciel had taught him. He was too tired to craft a verse in Elder, too angry to muster iambic. 

Twice before had he struck a bargain with his own words and his own heart. It would have to be enough.

“You have claimed eternity among my noble court. Do such gifts no longer please you?”

_ They never did _ , Julian thought bitterly.

“You call the silver road to send your other nobles between the realms, My Lord. I ask for nothing more than the privileges you freely grant the least among your court.”

The Staryk Lord sat forward, cold amusement twisting the shifting lines of his winter face. “You wish to join the Hunt?”

Julian swallowed thickly. “Am I not a Staryk noble?” He asked, rather than answer.

Amusement gave way to thunderous rage. “You question me?”

“You refuse to bargain?”

A wave of quiet sound rushed through the room. The Staryk Lord’s eyes glittered with rage. “Until one hundred Staryk souls are - by your music - recalled from mist, my road is ever closed to you.”

“Then the hundredth soul is my release?” 

The Staryk Lord leaned back once more, rage still gleaming in the lines of his face and the darkness of his eyes. “My road runs not beneath green boughs. You will travel to the sunlit world on the first snowfall following the hundredth soul recalled.”

Julian bowed low and retreated from the dais. Tremulous relief chased away exhaustion. He left the audience rooms and limped to his chambers. His servant was already there, Sor’ca dozing on his carpet and a tray of food laid out upon his desk.

“You have been gone a full day,” his servant murmured, taking in his haggard appearance with no small measure of judgement.

Julian snatched a winter apple from the tray and sat at Sor’ca’s side. “I have spoken to the king.”

She knelt across from him, eyes wide. “When?”

“Just now.”

“What did he say?”

A knock at the door curtailed his response. His servant rose to answer it. The door had scarcely opened before Nauczyciel pushed inside.

He stood in silence, staring down at Julian with fathomless calm.

Guilt drove Julian to speak first. “I’m sorry,” he offered, gazing down at the carpet between Nauczyciel’s feet. “I should have consulted with you before I spoke.”

“Yes.”

“It was foolish and shortsighted.”

“Yes.”

“But you should not have hidden the passage of time from me.”

Nauczyciel sighed. “No, perhaps not.”

He pulled the chair out from the desk and sat, hands clasped before him. The servant, still waiting at the door, retreated to the shadowed corners of the room, gazing anxiously between Julian and Nauczyciel. 

“At least I made a bargain. There is an end in sight at last.”

Nauczyciel’s craggy face grew weary. His hands twisted together and he looked away. “Feainnewedd,” he said, voice low, “you made a poor bargain.”

The words were like a slap. “What else should I have done? Waited until all I know and love is beyond my grasp? What life would I have to fight for then?”

“Your haste may have robbed you of such joys just as thoroughly,” Nauczyciel said. The faintest rasp of anger lurked in his voice. “How long do Staryk live?”

“Is that really--”

“Ten times ten mortal lifetimes is a Staryk’s youth. You mourn the loss of twelve meager years? How much more will pass as you wait for one hundred Staryk souls to cross the veil?”

Julian flinched. “Age is not the only fatal measure--”

“In a Golden Era of peace and winter winds?” Nauczyciel spread his hands. “There is no war to slaughter us, no summer blaze to melt our icy walls. We are safe within our Lord’s protection, doubly so after today.”

“What else was I to do?” Julian cried, matching Nauczyciel’s anger with his own. “You tell me I must wait and wait, but never say what I am waiting for. What friend would hide the truth from me like this? What teacher keeps his student ignorant?”

“What student fails to obey?” Nauczyciel shouted.

Sor’ca woke and began to cry. The servant twitched in the shadows, but did not move. Julian gathered the babe up instead, bouncing her in his arms. 

For long minutes, the only sound in the room was Sor’ca’s tearful murmurs and the soft notes of Julian’s lullaby. When the song was done, Sor’ca slept again and Julian’s rage had cooled.

It still lingered in his breast. No longer blazing bright, but cold and steady as a glacier. 

He looked up and met Nauczyciel’s gaze. “I am neither your bondsman nor a political tool,” he said, voice measured. “I made no promise of obedience. Whatever power you see tangled in my Destiny is not for you to grasp. You have taught me, I have learned. I will sing your song at court and our arrangement is concluded.”

“Feainnewedd--”

“Tell me: was it political? Did you hope to use my power to expand your influence among the court?”

Nauczyciel would not meet his eyes.

Julian’s voice cracked as he asked, “did you offer any kindness for kindness’ sake?”

“The Staryk are not built for kindness,” Nauczyciel said at last. “I will not claim my motives were selfless. Only a fool would disregard the advantage our arrangement presents; the advantage to us both.”

“I have loved you as a father,” Julian whispered. He shaped the words cruelly, arrows loosed from his tongue, and relished Nauczyciel’s flinch as they pierced him.

He made no response.

The satisfaction faded as quickly as it came. Julian closed his eyes. “I wish to be alone now.”

Nauczyciel left without protest. The servant came and gathered Sor’ca, pressing an icy kiss to Julian’s pale cheek. When the door was closed behind her, Julian lifted the pitcher of water that stood upon his bedside table and cast it against the tally-covered wall. Water and glass flew across the room.

Panting with frustration, Julian grabbed one of the larger shards from where it fell among his blankets. He leapt upon his bed and began to hack at the ice already pitted with marks.

The edges of the glass dug into the meat of his palm. Blood ran down his forearm, staining the white silk. Julian hardly noticed.

He continued until nothing remained of his marks except a jagged, bloody hollow in the ice.

Julian stumbled back, nearly falling from the bed. His hand convulsed painfully, slick with blood. 

With fading strength he dragged his chair to the blank wall on the opposite side of the room. He set the point of the pottery to the ice and began to carve.

One mark for Sor’ca, innocent and bright.

One mark for Nauczyciel, who he loved still with a bruised and bloody heart.

One mark for the Staryk knight, who sat with him when he did not wish to be alone.

Three marks for the Staryk nobles he had raised beneath Nauczyciel’s watchful eye.

Twelve years lost to the ravages of time. Six marks to show for it. Ninety-four remaining.

He fell asleep slumped upon the floor, gazing at the empty wall that seemed to mock his folly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: self-harming actions, though not with deliberate suicidal or self-harm intentions.
> 
> Sor'ca means 'little sister' in Elder
> 
> I'm not sure how much I'm going to reflect on this in the actual story, but can I just take a moment of silence for poor Julian. He has to finish the last awkward stages of puberty surrounded by inhuman Fae? Oof.
> 
> Also, adding an angst tag because Jeez... I promise, good things will eventually happen.


	10. Storytelling

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "He told me it was my fault,” Jaskier whispered. Or he thought it was a whisper. Perhaps not.
> 
> Yennefer snorted. “What, me leaving?”
> 
> “No,” he hesitated, “yes. Everything. He said everything was my fault.”

It stung a little, in that old familiar way, when he arrived at the cave several hours late, only to find the action done and Borch - who they had mourned - still living. 

He tried to sit with them on the sun warmed stone but Geralt shook his head. He wanted to speak with Borch and hear the story from the dragon’s mouth, he wanted to check Geralt for wounds, wanted to tease Yennefer about her wind-tangled hair. 

But Geralt shook his head. So Jaskier found a seat on the hill nearby and strained his ears to catch the scraps of conversation blown past him on the wind.

“Geralt did not want to lose you,” Borch revealed.

And then: “in Rinde,” Geralt said. “The Djinn.”

It snapped together then, like the last pieces of a puzzle. Or perhaps the first pieces. The beginning of an epiphany connected in a quiet exhale on a windy day. 

As clearly as if he still knelt at Baba Yaga’s feet, Jaskier saw the tangle of souls and fate that bound witch and Witcher together. Of course Geralt had wished for her. 

Yennefer walked away and Jaskier’s heart ached with sympathy, jealousy, relief, and everything in between. Geralt wished for her. Geralt took away her choice. She’s leaving. She’s leaving. She’s leaving.

Then Borch left and Jaskier was alone with a grieving Geralt. 

Even as he stood at Geralt’s back, he knew this was a bad idea. Some part of him saw the tension in Geralt’s flexing fists, the anger in the tendons of his neck. He was vulnerable. He needed time.

Jaskier knew this was a bad idea. He spoke anyway.

“Whew, what a day! I imagine you’re probably--”

“Damnit, Jaskier!” Geralt spun and advanced, face pinched with fury. “Why is whenever I find myself in a pile of shit these days, it’s you, shoveling it?”

He would feel indignant if the vitriol in Geralt’s voice didn’t burn him to the very quick. He pushed out a choked protest. He couldn’t hear himself over the rushing in his ears.

“The child surprise, the djinn, all of it! If life could give me one blessing, it would be to take  _ you _ off my hands.”

Geralt turned away without waiting for Jaskier to respond. He didn’t look back to see the damage he had wrought.

_ I will not cry _ , Jaskier promised himself, rubbing his forefinger against the calluses of his thumb.  _ I will not cry in front of him. _

“Right, uh,” his voice cracked. “Right then. I’ll--I’ll go get the rest of the story from the others.”

Geralt made no gesture to show he heard. He faced the valley below without moving.

They had parted in poor temper before. At the beginning, Geralt had been angry with Jaskier more often than not. 

It had never felt so much like goodbye, even then.

“See you around, Geralt.”

***

Jaskier arrived at the inn at the base of the mountain footsore, heartbroken, and desperate for a drink. It nearly felt like Destiny when the first person to meet his eyes was Yennefer of fucking Vengerberg.

She looked at him with equal measures of hostility and desperation. Jaskier looked into the violet mirror of himself, and took the seat across from her.

“You’re buying,” he muttered, waving for a pint.

Yennefer raised a skeptical brow. “Did I invite you, Jaskier?”

“Do you want me to go?”

Yennefer dropped a few coins on the table and looked into the middle distance above Jaskier’s shoulder. He flashed her a hollow grin and took a long pull on the surprisingly strong beer.

"I hadn’t thought to see you here,” she said at last. “Not without him”

Jaskier rolled the tankard between his palms. “It seems you’ll be seeing me without him more often in the future.”

He pondered that for a moment, imagining a future where he ran into Yennefer on the road instead of Geralt. Would she still stop and drink with him if Geralt wasn’t there to keep the peace? Would he want her to?

“Fuck.” Yennefer called for a jug of beer and another of wine. When they arrived, she stood and jerked her chin. “Come, bard.”

Jaskier followed her through the crowded taproom and up the stairs. Her room was finer than the establishment below would have led him to believe, likely enhanced by liberal amounts of magic. A fire crackled in the hearth.

Yennefer dropped to the floor near the fire and poured herself another glass of wine. Jaskier set his bags aside and joined her. They drank together in silence until the walls began to spin in heavy circles and the firelight stretched gleaming streaks of light to dance upon their skin.

“He told me it was my fault,” Jaskier whispered. Or he thought it was a whisper. Perhaps not.

Yennefer snorted. “What, me leaving?”

“No,” he hesitated, “yes. Everything. He said everything was my fault.”

“How?”

“I don’t know. He meant it, though. Or maybe not. He thought he did.”

She reached out and patted his arm. Her hands were cold. “Don’t sacrifice your anger to empathy, Jaskier. You’re better than that.”

Jaskier weighed this, both flattered and insulted. “I didn’t know you thought me better than anything.”

She leaned back against the hearth, staring up at the ceiling with a pinched expression that Jaskier couldn’t read. “You saved my life,” she said at last. “In the Amells. I haven’t forgotten.”

Jaskier watched her for a moment. When she refused to meet his gaze, he scooted until they sat pressed close from shoulder to ankle. 

Yennefer finished the wine and switched to beer. It was nearly empty. She sloshed the last dregs with a heavy sigh and set it aside. The quiet grew, filled only with the crackling of the fire. 

“I didn’t know,” he promised when the silence grew overwhelming. His voice was weak with alcohol and loss. “I swear, he never told me.”

“Would you have said something, if he had?”

Jaskier nodded, swallowing thickly. “You have a right to know your fate.”

Some tension he had not been aware of drained from her. A snap of her fingers filled both jugs anew and she reached out to refill his tankard.

“Do you want to know the worst part?” She asked, commiseration softening her tone. “Even knowing that it’s false, I still feel it. That pull to find him, to see him well.”

“It’s awful,” Jaskier agreed. “The worst.”

“How do you do it? Choose to love him, even when you’re free to go?”

Jaskier laughed. “It’s easy,” he confided. “It’s the easiest thing I’ve done in my entire life. He’s so  _ good _ , Yen. Even when he’s awful and he pushes me away, he’s good too. I’m lucky to love him.”

“He’s breaking your heart,” Yennefer reminded him. Jaskier flinched, but she didn’t pause. “How are you lucky to love a man who doesn’t love you back?”

She sounded curious rather than dismissive. As though it had never occurred to her that the act of offering affection was as precious as receiving it. 

“The world thinks he is a monster,” Jaskier said slowly, fighting to articulate through the fog of alcohol. “After so long, he’s starting to believe it. He hates himself, I think, and he’s afraid. But he lets me love him. So I’m lucky.”

“That’s fucked up,” Yennefer pointed out, draining her goblet. “You know that, right?”

He shrugged. “Maybe.”

Between the warmth of the fire, the buzz of the beer, and the soft ebb and flow of Yennefer’s breathing, Jaskier was nearly asleep when Yennefer spoke again.

“He said I’d make a bad mother,” she whispered. Her eyes were closed. “He said I was foolish, for wanting the choice.”

Jaskier rested his cheek against the top of her head. “Children are a sore subject for him,” he confided. “I didn’t know you wanted to be a mother.”

Her breathing was carefully even. Jaskier couldn’t tell if she was fighting back tears or nausea. Perhaps both.

“I wanted a choice.”

He wrapped an arm around her, pulling her close. She was stiff and uncertain against his chest. Jaskier wondered if anyone had ever offered such a simple comfort before. He wondered if she had ever accepted.

“There are more ways to cultivate life and love than giving birth, Yennefer.”

Yennefer pinched him hard enough to bruise and Jaskier jerked, biting back a yelp. In a moment of earth-shattering stupidity, the buried instincts born of brotherhood resurfaced and he dug his knuckles into her scalp.

When they separated, Jaskier was laughing and could already feel the tell-tale soreness of bruises blooming where Yennefer had knocked him with her impressively sharp elbows. She, on the other hand, was only lightly ruffled. Though she scowled, there were no signs of tears in her eyes any longer.

He tugged her down again to lay against his side. She acquiesced with moderate reluctance, pinching him in warning when he pulled her close.

“Let me tell you a story.”

Yennefer sniffed. “If it’s bad, I  _ will _ turn you into a toad.”

“Fair enough.” Jaskier cleared his throat and closed his eyes, gathering his thoughts.

“Once upon a time, there was a wandering warrior--”

“Jaskier.”

“I am the most acclaimed bard on the continent. At least give me the benefit of the doubt.”

“You won’t do much singing as a toad."

He sighed and closed his eyes again. “-- _ A wandering warrior by the name of Bruin. Bruin was a noble man with a thankless task. He was charged by Destiny to guard humanity from the ravenous beasts who sought to consume them. It was difficult work, and it kept him isolated from the people he was meant to protect. They grew to fear him, and he did not understand them or their ways. _

“ _ One day, after a difficult battle, the villagers that Bruin saved began to throw stones at him. They spat at him and called him monstrous. Bruin did not want to hurt them, and he did not want to die, so he fled into the woods. _

_ “Seized by a fit of rage, Bruin challenged Destiny and asked her why he was denied the kindnesses she granted to the least among the people. He did not expect an answer. _

_ “That night, a woman came to him in his dreams. She asked him what kindness he had been denied. He told her that he had seen the people, he had watched them as he did her work. They had friends, partners, children that they could share the burdens of their life with. He asked why Destiny commanded him to walk his Path alone.” _

Yennefer pressed her cheek against Jaskier’s chest. “I wonder how your ribbit would sound, bard.”

“Do you want to hear the story or not?”

She was silent. Jaskier levered himself up to take another sip of beer and continued.

“ _ The woman in his dream listened to him speak. When he was done and on the cusp of waking, she pressed a kiss upon his forehead; she raised his hands and kissed his palms; and she bent to kiss his feet. Kneeling there, she told him that Destiny would grant him this: a partner, a child, and a friend.  _

_ "But, as it is for all such Destined gifts, it would not be as he expected.  _

_ “Bruin awoke and continued on his Path, killing monsters on his own. Some time later, when his dream had nearly faded from his mind, he chanced upon a boy - little more than a child to Bruin’s eyes. The boy was reckless, foolish, and impressively callous. Bruin did not like him.” _

“I wonder who that could be?”

“ _ The boy followed Bruin anyway. At first it was a nuisance. It was harder to fight monsters when a fragile child tagged behind his heels, and the boy could not easily survive the wilderness as Bruin did. Several times, he tried to leave the boy behind, but the boy did not go. _

_ “Eventually, Bruin resigned himself and grew used to the boy accompanying him. Years went by, and Bruin and the boy came to a town plagued by a beast. A woman approached Bruin. She was beautiful and brave, and when she looked into Bruin’s eyes she did not fear him.  _

_ “Bruin killed the monster, and when he left, the woman came with him. They traveled together for a time: the boy, the woman, and Bruin.  _

_ “It was not always easy, because all of them were difficult people. The woman was powerful, with a Destiny of her own, and she and Bruin fought more often than they didn’t. The boy, who had grown accustomed to Bruin’s full attention, grew petty and selfish. Even with these difficulties, Bruin and the woman felt the first stirrings of love grow in their hearts.” _

Yennefer sighed. “Jaskier, honestly.”

_ “Then, on a day as like to tomorrow as it was to yesterday, Bruin was too late to kill a monster. The village it had torn asunder was left bloody and empty of all life. Or, nearly all life. _

_ “The boy came running through the streets, bearing a babe. It was young and small and perfect. When they camped for the night, the woman and the boy began making plans to bring the child on their travels. Bruin, hearing this, was afraid.  _

_ “He already dreaded that the boy and the woman would meet their end at his side. An infant was too small to defend herself with magic, as the woman did, or run and hide, as the boy did. To take it with them was to sentence it to death. _

_ “So in the night he took up the babe and traveled beneath the moon to the last village they had passed. He placed the babe on the midwife’s stoop and bent to gently kiss her sleeping brow, her curled fists, and the soft pads of her feet. When the sun rose, he was back at the woman’s side. _

_ “When they awoke to find the infant gone, the woman and the boy were distraught. Bruin explained what he had done and they grew furious. _

_ “After long hours of argument, the woman left. Bruin - frustrated, angry, and hurt - went the opposite direction, alone.  _

_ “In his dreams that night, Bruin saw Destiny once more. He asked her if she had meant to bring him pain, by showing him the joys of what he asked for and taking them away again. _

_ “Destiny knelt to kiss his feet; pressed kisses to his palms; and rose to gently kiss his brow. She told him that the joy she gave to him was his forever. But as with all his Destined gifts, it was up to him to nourish it.” _

When he fell silent, Yennefer nudged him. “Well,” she asked, shamelessly impatient. “How does it end?”

“I don’t know,” Jaskier admitted. “But I feel better having told it.”

He drifted off, tangled in Yennefer’s arms. When he awoke, the room was empty and the fire had died down to the last ashy coals.

_ Disappointment _ , he told himself firmly,  _ is illogical. _

Jaskier rinsed his face in the basin and staggered to the taproom, head pounding.

“The sorceress who was staying here--” he whispered hoarsely when the barkeep passed him bread and cheese, “purple eyes, dark hair, fucking terrifying - did she leave a message?”

The barkeep nodded and slid him a folded scrap of parchment. Jaskier shoved the entire piece of still-warm bread into his mouth and brushed the crumbs from his fingers before he opened it.

> _ Jaskier, _
> 
> _ I will wait to curse you until I know how the story ends.  _
> 
> _ Take care, _
> 
> _ Y _

“She paid for your breakfast,” the barkeep told him. “Said to tell you that it’s only because she pitied you.”

“Yeah, that makes sense,” Jaskier muttered. He rested his forehead against the tacky wood of the bar. 

The barkeep chuckled. “Woman troubles, son?”

“In a truly shocking turn of events, sir, that woman is the least troubling aspect of my life at the moment.”

Jaskier considered the truth of his statement and began to laugh. It made his stomach roll unpleasantly, but once he had begun he found it hard to stop.

He was still laughing as he gathered his lute and set off on the road.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had to watch the clip of The Great Mountain Heartbreak so many times to get the dialogue right that, by the time I'd finished the first part, I decided I deserved a treat. So here you go: some Yen and Jaskier therapy/friendship + self-indulgent homebrew folklore. Hopefully that's not too divergent from the vibes this story has cultivated this far.
> 
> Stay safe out there, y'all.


	11. Spring

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He pulled Julian down and pressed a kiss upon his forehead. “I bless you.” He gripped Julian’s wrists and bent to kiss his palms, “I bless your works.” He fell to his knees and kissed the tops of Julian’s boots, “I bless the path that you have chosen.”
> 
> Julian was flying. He was falling. All eyes were on them.

The hunting party returned from a sunlit raid bearing chests of gold, a brace of white pelted hares, and a death-stiff knight enshrouded in his bloody cloak.

Julian saw them approach from his lookout on the mountain’s face. His knuckles bleached white around the railing as he fought to keep from falling to his knees in the heady rush of adrenaline and relief.

He was already singing when they entered the mountain. His power, as familiar to him now as his own left hand, stretched out and gripped the soul of the fallen.

The Staryk jerked suddenly, a fish caught on a baited line, and Julian called him home.

When Julian opened his eyes, the Staryk Lord stood beside him. “A hundred souls recalled,” he said, watching the knight stir.

“And snow falls in the sunlit world.” Julian’s fingers trembled on the strings of his lute. He had not tracked the days, not since he had fought with Nauczyciel. Still, the weight of years pressed upon him like a fog.

He wondered if he would still recognize Zofia when he saw her again. He thought he would, even sunken to wrinkles and bleached of her color. He imagined that the spirit in her would call out to him. There was no alternative he would accept.

“You have kept your bargain,” the Staryk Lord allowed. “Make ready and return here.”

Julian turned and sprinted from the entry hall, dignity forgotten. His feet flew up the winding stairs, past his own room which held nothing he wished to carry, and to the servant’s hall.

“I am released!” He cried, bursting through the door. 

His servant jumped, dropping her basket of mending with a cry. Julian peered about the room and, finding it empty, went to help her gather the ivory silks that had spilled across the floor.

“Where is Sor’ca? I’ve won my bargain, the Staryk Lord is summoning the silver road to the sunlit world.” Irritation and anxiety grew in his gut as his servant shook her head, refusing to look up from their work.

“My brother has taken her out driving. He wishes to apprentice her soon.” Her hands were shaking.

Julian’s stomach dropped. “She isn’t in the mountain?”

“You can see her when you return.”

“I did not bargain to return,” he said simply. 

At this, her face fell and she turned away. Heat pricked at Julian’s eyes and he fingered the raw hems of the doublet he would have worn for the king’s next feast.

He had not thought that he would have to leave both his sisters without goodbye.

His servant sighed. “You cannot wait for her. But you should say goodbye to him.”

Julian recoiled, denial falling from his lips without a conscious thought. “I doubt he’ll notice when I’m gone.”

“You named him. He will notice.”

“He hid the truth from me.”

She turned to face him, her face set and clear. “All parents hide truth from their children. Or do you think I shall tell my daughter that the man who named her celebrated his departure from her life?”

A thousand rebuttals sprung to life behind his teeth, but Julian bit them back. What excuse could he give that would bring her any peace? He loved the girl he called his sister, but not enough to stay. What else was there?

“I am not a Staryk,” he whispered, volumes of apology contained within the words. He shrunk beneath her gaze.

Her cool palm pressed against his cheek. “But we are,” she reminded him, “and you have loved us anyway. You should say goodbye to him.”

Julian stood and shrugged the lute strap off. He thrust it into her arms. “Give this to Sor’ca. Please.”

“She can’t accept a gift, lord.”

“A loan, then. Tell her that I look forward to its return.”

Before she could protest again, Julian turned and left. He wiped the dampness from his cheeks and did not look back.

It had been many years since he had walked the path to Nauczyciel’s quarters. Dread slowed his stride, even as the urgency of freedom pulled him forward.

The door opened before Julian had a chance to knock. Nauczyciel looked at him, shock bright in his deep eyes. For a moment, neither moved.

“I heard you won your bargain,” Nauczyciel said, voice clear and crisp in spite of the uncertainty it contained.

Julian wrapped his arms around himself. “I did.”

They watched each other warily, each shackled to silence by their own regrets.

Nauczyciel stood aside. “Would you like to sit?”

“No, our Lord is waiting for me.”

Nauczyciel nodded. “Shall we walk together?”

Julian fell in beside him. They walked slowly, bare inches separating the sway of their shoulders. Other Staryk stepped aside as they approached and whispered once they had passed. Their words were too soft for Julian to hear, but he could guess the vitriol they spread amongst themselves.

“I want you to know that I’m sorry, and I forgive you,” Julian said as they rounded the corner and the stately chaos of the entry hall spread out before them. “I wish you had not taught me to be proud, or I think I might have told you sooner.”

He waited a beat, hoping for-- something, but Nauczyciel was silent. At last Julian shook his head and turned to go, catching the Staryk Lord’s eye.

Nauczyciel caught his elbow and held him firm. “Feainnewedd,” he said, voice filling the chamber so that every eye was turned upon them. “I thank you.”

Julian reeled. Nauczyciel’s ice-firm hands clasped his cheeks. He pulled Julian down and pressed a kiss upon his forehead. “I bless you.” He gripped Julian’s wrists and bent to kiss his palms, “I bless your works.” He fell to his knees and kissed the tops of Julian’s boots, “I bless the path that you have chosen.”

Julian was flying. He was falling. All eyes were on them.

Nauczyciel rose, and Julian realized that he was weeping. “You learned too well what I had taught, and I learned not at all. I am sorry, Feainnewedd, and I thank you. Va fáill.”

The entire hall was silent but for the sighs of the beasts and the distant rush of the river. Julian fell forward and buried his face against Nauczyciel’s shoulder. He felt the Staryk's arms come up like a faulty marionette, as though the instinct to embrace had been half forgotten with disuse. He squeezed, smiling when Nauczyciel returned the gesture.

“My name is Julian,” he whispered against shifting winter skin. Before Nauczyciel could respond, he fled to the waiting sledge and clambered up beside the Staryk Lord.

Once Julian was settled, they did not linger in the mountain. The deer raced across the tundra, guided by the silver road that beckoned them to dawn.

Julian did not watch the rising light. His eyes were fixed upon the distant shine of ice as the glass mountain faded into the horizon, and was gone.

***

His fingers caught upon the age-worn stone. Faintly, he could read her epitaph:  _ Zofia Marie Pankratz Nowak - Beloved Wife, Daughter, Mother, Sister. _

“She lived a long life,” he whispered. There were buttercups carved upon the plaque and his heart ached with the need to weep. “How, how long has she been--”

“The world was young when you came to us,” the Staryk Lord said. He looked across the snowy clearing. What remained of Lettenhove was concealed beneath the drifts of white. Where streets once wound through shops and homes, the forest spread snow-heavy boughs. “It is not young any longer. The cruelty that existed has spread, and any good that might be is hidden now.”

“A hundred years?” Julian guessed, grasping to understand the faded stone beneath his palms. “Two hundred?”

“Ten times man’s mortal life, or maybe more. What do I care to count the sunlit days?” The Staryk Lord shrugged.

Julian felt sick. “I’ll sing them back,” he whispered, still tracing the Z of his sister’s name. One-two, and again.

The Staryk Lord sighed. “Not even the Witch Between could tip her scales to call them back from mist. They are gone, bard, let them be at peace.”

“So I am the last of my line remaining in Lithvas?”

“I know not where your family’s descendants have roamed, but Lithvas is no more. The empires men built have fallen, the kings that remain are numerous and paltry.”

Julian bent and buried his face in his palms. Snow fell to pile at the nape of his neck. He felt the chill as the touch of a hand, gentle and familiar.

The Staryk Lord stepped back, crunching fresh snow boldly beneath his soles. “Our bargain is complete, bard. You have the liberty of these sunlit lands. Be warned: though you are a Staryk noble, your status will mean little when winter fades.”

“Will I ever return?” Julian asked dully. He half wanted to bargain to return immediately, clawing for normalcy in his maelstrom of shock. His mind was full of stone and ice; for once it held no music. He listened to the world and heard only the echo of silence.

“The silver road shall never bear you hence by my command; and unless you can coax a snowtree’s blossom from the barren earth, such power is beyond you.”

Julian remained, hunched over Zofia’s grave, as the Staryk Lord stepped into the sledge and departed with the barest whisper of the winter wind. 

He lay, unmoving in the swirling snow, until hunger drove him to his feet. His first stumbling steps in the new world took him through the forest, grown dark and wild in the years that he’d been gone.

Deep between the trees, strange creatures snarled and watched him pass with wicked eyes. He didn't have the courage to feel fear as he stared them down and dared them to attack. They slunk back to the shadows when he held their eyes. 

When the woodsman found him asleep in a snowdrift, she thought him dead. She nearly killed him herself when Julian stirred to ask for food. The right hook laid him flat, and he did not fully return to himself until she had laid him out before the fire. The novelty of flame and color drew him from of his blind stupor nearly as well as the hearty stew she laid before him.

“I’m sorry,” she apologized again as he ate. 

He looked up to her rose-pink face and loved her so much he thought his heart might stop.

“It’s nothing, truly. A deeply bruised jaw from a woman of your exquisite beauty is an honor I am glad to bear.”

She winced and reached out to prod at the swelling bruise on the hinge of his jaw. “I think I hit you harder than we thought.”

“Fear not, my lady. I believe I shall survive with my livelihood intact.”

“Your livelihood is your jaw? What, are you a minstrel?”

“A bard.”

She laughed. “There's a difference?”

“A difference?” Julian gasped with mock offense. “The difference, my lady, is composition. A minstrel merely sings. A bard immortalizes beauty in song and shares his creations with the world.”

“Have you composed many songs, O Bard?” She teased, leaning in closer.

He felt caught in her orbit, pulled forward like a flower in the sun. “Enough to sing for a year and a day, but none that would do you justice.”

She smiled and his heart beat triple time. “What’s your name, then? Have I heard of you?”

The world tipped and righted itself askew. He gasped, humid air heavy on his tongue. His Name, she wanted his Name. But she was mortal, names had no power here.

“Jaskier,” he whispered. He rubbed his forefinger against the calluses of his thumb, remembering the ridges of his sister’s headstone. “Jaskier, like the flower.”

“Dandelion?” The woman wrinkled her nose.

He offered a strained smile. “Buttercup.”

“Well, Jaskier, I don’t think I have ever heard of you before. Not much of a bard, hmm?”

“I will be.”

Their breath mingled between them. “You’re on to Oxenfurt, then?”

Jaskier shrugged, captivated by the plump curve of her cheek. “Maybe in the morning,” he allowed.

He didn’t understand why that made her laugh; but she kissed him afterwards, so he pushed it from his mind.

***

Jaskier dodged the frisky hands of the barmaid and smiled winningly at the ruddy-faced gentleman who just purchased rounds for his table. His fingers danced across the neck of his lute, picking out the melody of a new folksong he’d learned in Creyden.

It was a little coarser than he usually brought out for the midday crowd, but the drunk man had the fattest purse of anyone in the inn. A coarse song would be perfect.

Or not.

Jaskier knelt to gather the stale bread, scowling at the shouting crowd. “I’m the pride of Oxenfurt, you know. Kings and queens pay for the privilege of my music.”

The last heckler, Jaskier’s mark, snorted so hard he nearly tipped from his bench. “Aye, and I’m the Lioness of Cintra!”

Jaskier idly considered chucking one of the harder rolls back at the man’s head. Resisting the urge, his eyes fell upon a man huddled in the shadows with hair like snow and eyes of gold. He glinted in the faint sunlight like a snowy morning. Jaskier knew he was not of the Winter court, but something of their fierceness hung about him. It resonated in Jaskier like a tuning fork.

“I love the way you just-- sit in the corner and brood.”

The man looked away. “I came to drink alone.”

“Right. Good, yeah. No one else hesitated to comment on the quality of my performance, except for you. Come on, you don’t want to keep a man with,” he fumbled, cursing himself for speaking without thinking. “Er, bread in his pants waiting.”

He slid into the seat across from Destiny and bared his teeth, his throat, his heart. “You must have some review for me, three words or less.”

The man with living heat and winter soul glared at him. "They don't exist." His voice was gravel.

Jaskier had no idea what he meant.

"The creatures in your song."

"And how would you know?" But even as he spoke the words, the clues fell into place. Jaskier drummed his hands in delight and the man - the Witcher - turned to go.

“You’re Geralt of Rivia,” Jaskier called even as the door swung shut. His heart was soaring. “Called it!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So that's the last chapter of Julian's past! Sorry not sorry.
> 
> Let me know what you think :) I know a few of you saw this coming, hopefully it was worth the wait


	12. Reunited

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I shall endeavor to render aid without shoveling your shit,” Jaskier muttered, forcing a chill into the words to hide the way his voice wavered.
> 
> “Jaskier.” Geralt whispered his name and the syllables were a caress, a reaching hand, a warm embrace.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger Warning - Notes at End

Jaskier kicked his feet up on the polished mahogany desk and hummed a riff in minor key, drawing out the notes to extend tension as the Redanian Spymaster glared forbiddingly over the top of his report.

“You’re telling me that you have a ‘source’ among the sorceresses of Aretuza? You?”

“I’m telling you that I acquired insider information regarding the situation at Sodden. My sources are both primary and confidential, as has always been the case, Josef.” 

Josef threw the report aside and pushed Jaskier’s feet from the desk with a huff. “Given that I know for a fact you’ve been wallowing at court for the past eight months, I’m skeptical.”

Jaskier clutched his chest, not bothering to hide a grin. “You wound me, cousin!”

“A familial relationship has never been proven,” Josef rebuked quickly, with the distracted air of someone well-practiced in their response. “So your ‘source’ - what, gave you a xenovox - and took the time to notify you that Sodden fell  _ as they were fleeing a warzone _ ?”

“Oh I’m sure she waited until she was safely away. She’s sensible like that.” Jaskier scratched idle fingers across his tunic’s newest ink-stain and watched Josef pace with hooded eyes.

The Redanian Spymaster was a tall, willowy man with hair like a dandelion tuft and the deep-etched wrinkles that came more from personal severity than age. He had met Jaskier some fifteen years prior in a taproom brawl that most people would deem an ordinary hazard of city living. Jaskier, on the other hand, classified that particular brawl as ‘far too much work’ and put considerable effort into ensuring that Josef did not dig deeper into Jaskier’s presence in his life.

Josef did not smile often. But when he did, he had Zofia’s dimples.

“You’ve never steered me wrong before, Jaskier, but I truly wish to doubt you now.” Josef sat and tucked a curled fist beneath his chin. There were deep shadows in the bags beneath his eyes.

Jaskier’s smile fell and he turned away from Josef’s clever eyes. Yennefer’s voice echoed in his memory, strained and tinny through the magic of the xenovox.

_ “I don’t have time to tell you much. Sodden has fallen and Nilfgaard will march North. I know what they seek. We must keep it from them at all costs.” _

After this ominous pronouncement, the xenovox had fallen silent. Jaskier had tried for the rest of the morning to reactivate it without effect. It wasn’t clear whether the lack of response was borne of his own ignorance in the workings of magical snuffboxes, or if some nefarious forces had kept Yennefer silent. Only patience born of years had prevented Jaskier from flinging the xenovox against the nearest wall.

He’d gotten supremely drunk that night and fallen asleep with the box tucked beneath his chin. His dreams had been filled with lilacs, gooseberry, and cold golden eyes.

It had taken him three days to write the report now scattered across Josef’s desk. He’d had to start over twice when his shaking hands spilled ink across the page.

“Trust me, Josef, I wish I could doubt myself. On this matter, however, my source was certain: Nilfgaard will march North.”

“And with Cintra gone, we must prepare for the inevitable. Damn them,” Josef concluded. He poured a tumbler of clear liquor, drained it, and poured again.

Jaskier watched with rekindled amusement. “You meet with the queen in the morning. Don’t overdo it.”

“I suppose when  _ you _ advise temperance, it’s best to listen,” Josef muttered. “Very well. Go to bed, Jaskier, you look like shit. Find me immediately if your ‘source’ contacts you again.”

“You’ll be my first thought, cousin.”

Josef snorted, “Now that, I do doubt.”

Jaskier winked at him and sauntered from the office. Josef’s secretary had long since retired for the evening and the halls between the Spymaster’s office and his own quarters were empty. Jaskier counted the flagstones beneath his boots and turned Yennefer’s words around and around in his mind.

_ “We must keep it from them at all costs,”  _ she had said.

Was he included in that ‘we?’ It had been nearly two years since he had woken at the inn to find Yennefer gone. He had discovered the xenovox in his pack some six months later, but their paths hadn’t crossed again in spite of Jaskier’s efforts to track the elusive Yennefer of Vengerberg.

He hadn’t tried to track Geralt. Had, in fact, actively avoided any mention of the White Wolf. This had been far more difficult than he anticipated, since his bardic brand had been built on Witcher tales.

Thankfully, Josef never turned down an extra hand. Intelligence gathering was far less rewarding than music, but at least no one asked a Redanian Intelligence Agent if they had news of the Butcher of Blaviken.

He was musing on this as the door to his rooms swung open and the bright point of a steel sword came up to rest gently against the hollow of his throat.

Jaskier followed the length of the weapon up to the familiar, scarred hands wrapped around the hilt. His knees felt weak and his stomach twisted painfully up into his lungs. The world fell in, breathed out, was borne anew in the fire of the Witcher’s golden gaze.

“Jaskier.”

Geralt lowered the sword and stepped aside. Still in shock, Jaskier slipped into his room and bolted the door behind him.

Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Yennefer’s dark hair spread across his pillow. Curled in her arms was the unmistakable figure of Princess Cirilla of Cintra.

Jaskier processed this without shifting his focus from Geralt. The Witcher’s face was gaunt with exhaustion and clammy, as though some sickness lingered in his fevered cheeks. He seemed to take in Jaskier’s appearance just as desperately.

Beneath his scrutiny, Jaskier was acutely aware of his worn and ink-stained tunic, a far cry from the bardic finery he had worn on the Path. His hair was greasy, long and tousled from neglect. Three day’s growth itched across his cheeks. 

He felt rather pitiful. All his daydreams of confronting Geralt with his success and independence fell away like cottonwood. 

“Geralt.” The name stuck in his throat. His mouth snapped shut on the questions burning at the tip of his tongue. The tip of his forefinger traced the whorls of his thumb.

His reticence seemed to unsettle the Witcher, who lowered himself to sit on the hearth with naked uncertainty. “Yennefer said these were your rooms, but I--” he gestured vaguely at his sword. “Sorry.”

“Curious, considering she’s never seen them,” Jaskier asked without asking. He removed a stack of coded texts from the cushioned stool near his bed and sat. His knees were shaking.

Geralt watched him steadily. “She was tracking the xenovox. The Nilfgaard mage caught up to us today. Yennefer brought us here.”

Jaskier fought back his twinge of disappointment at Geralt’s explanation. Of course it had been Yennefer’s idea, not Geralt’s, to seek shelter with him.

“I assume the mage won’t be far behind.”

“No, we must continue north. We’ll seek sanctuary in Kaer Morhen for the winter.”

Jaskier twitched at the mention of the Witcher fortress. “You’re still two week’s travel from the pass.”

“Yes.”

“She couldn’t have portalled you closer?”

Geralt frowned. “She’s still weak from Sodden. She--” he closed his eyes briefly as though gathering strength. When he opened them again, his gaze was trained on Cirilla, asleep in Yennefer’s arms. “We need help. I’m sorry, Jaskier. Please.”

A hundred years might pass and Jaskier was sure he would still be utterly weak to the raw pain in Geralt’s voice. He bent forward and buried his face in his hands, mentally crafting his explanation to Josef. 

“I shall endeavor to render aid without shoveling your shit,” Jaskier muttered, forcing a chill into the words to hide the way his voice wavered.

“Jaskier.” Geralt whispered his name and the syllables were a caress, a reaching hand, a warm embrace.

He stood and brushed his grief into a box inside his heart, closing it firmly. “I’ll make the preparations. Your horses?”

Geralt flinched and shook his head.

Jaskier couldn’t help but soften slightly. “I’m sorry. She was a good mare.”

“There will be others,” Geralt muttered.

“Yes. There usually are,” Jaskier confirmed. He turned and pulled his spare blankets from the cedar chest near the window. “Here, sleep. You look like you need it. I’ll arrange supplies for us and we’ll leave in the morning.”

“Us?” Geralt asked, accepting the blankets meekly.

Jaskier sighed, “I’ll see you to the pass, at least. I have the credentials to command aid from Redanian outposts. I may not be able to help against Nilfgaard, but I’m not completely useless.”

“You never were.” The response was quick to Geralt’s lips. Eagerness lent weight to his honesty and Jaskier folded.

It wasn’t an apology, and it was less than he deserved, but he was tired of carrying this hurt.

He breathed deep and exhaled in one, long rush. When he glanced back at Geralt, his smile was awkward but real.

“Thank you.”

Geralt blinked and opened his mouth to respond, but a yawn overshadowed whatever he hoped to say.

Jaskier chuckled and pulled a decorative pillow from the foot of the bed. “Take this,” he said, thrusting it into Geralt’s arms, “sleep. I’ll make the arrangements. We’ll leave at dawn.”

He slipped out of the room before Geralt could respond. When the door shut behind him, he took a moment to stare blankly down the dark hall.

Geralt was here. Geralt needed him.

When his knuckles rapped against the wood of Josef’s door, he could not recall the journey between their rooms. 

Josef answered the door, half-dressed and sour with irritation. “It’s late,” he pointed out, leaning against the doorframe with a scowl.

“You’re still up,” Jaskier rebutted with a grin, pushing past him into the cramped antechamber.

Josef shut the door with a sigh and tied his quilted robe shut across his chest. “Don’t tell me you’ve learned something new on the walk back to your rooms.”

“Yes and no.”

Josef’s eyebrows flew up to his hairline. He held up a finger and ducked into his bedchamber. Jaskier waited patiently for him to return.

The bedchamber door opened again and the queen’s principal lady-in-waiting padded through the antechamber, tying her stays with a yawn. She nodded to Jaskier and departed. 

Jaskier whistled and sauntered into the bedchamber. “Does the queen know that you’ve wooed her favorite court lady?”

“Does the queen know that you slept with her consort?” Josef asked, struggling to tuck his tunic into his trousers.

Jaskier shrugged. “Touché.”

“Alright, what have you learned.”

Jaskier collapsed into the chair at Josef’s hearth and closed his eyes. “My source has come to Redania for aid.”

“In what capacity?”

“Personal,” Jaskier assured him, “mostly. She’s requested an escort to a prepared sanctuary.”

“Infantry or cavalry?”

“Neither. Myself, three or four sturdy mounts, supplies. A chit for outpost resources as we go.”

Josef nodded, already reaching for his quill and ink. “What did you bargain for?”

Jaskier considered his options. Confessing that he had agreed to render aid without a bargain seemed foolish, but he had little to offer in place of the truth. Josef might understand. He had certainly coaxed Jaskier through enough bouts of drunken melancholy after Geralt’s departure.

Confronting Josef’s reaction to Geralt’s return, however, was utterly beyond him at the moment.

“I can tell you what Nilfgaard seeks.”

Josef turned his full attention to Jaskier and gestured for him to continue.

“Princess Cirilla of Cintra.”

"Why?”

Jaskier shrugged. He remembered the raw power of Pavetta’s scream on the night of her wedding and the Chaos that had spun still air to storm. “I wouldn’t presume to guess their motivation.”

Josef finished the chit and pressed the Redanian seal to the corner. He offered it to Jaskier. “Redania has not declared war,” he warned.

Jaskier plucked the chit from his grasp. “Yet,” he countered.

They didn’t say goodbye when Jaskier left. They never did. Either they would see one another again, or they would not.

He gave notice to the night watchman to have four courier-trained mounts ready at dawn. A quick trip to the empty kitchens yielded at least three weeks’ supplies in hardtack, fruit, and dried meat. The laundry was slightly more complicated. Jaskier had to guess Yennefer and Cirilla’s sizes for the winter gear. Geralt’s, he still knew well.

His final stop was the public bathing rooms. They were empty at this hour, darkness echoing with the hollow slap and splash of the heated pool.

Jaskier lit a single torch and bathed quickly by its wavering light. His scented oils were still in his rooms, so he made do with the simple lye soap a careless bather had left behind.

Freshly bathed and shaved, weighed down with supplies, Jaskier crept through the palace halls and returned to his chambers. Dawn was, at most, two hours away. The sky outside was edged silver with the early winter sunrise.

Jaskier shut the door behind himself and slid the bolt home with exaggerated care. Geralt woke at the sound, in spite of his care, and was sitting up with sword in hand.

“Sorry,” Jaskier whispered and settled the bags against the door. “We still have a few hours. Go back to sleep.”

Geralt regarded him, his white hair was a frazzled halo around his sleep-creased head. He laid back slowly, holding Jaskier’s gaze like a drowning man, and twitched the blankets aside.

In the face of an invitation, Jaskier was helpless. He pulled his boots off and crawled forward, tucking himself into the nest Geralt had made of his spare blankets with only the faintest flicker of hesitation. 

Even with the layers of wool beneath them, the stone floor was unyielding and cold. Jaskier pressed his face against Geralt’s shoulder and felt at ease for the first time in over a year.

“You smell strange,” Geralt whispered. His voice was rough with sleep.

Jaskier shivered. “Had to borrow soap,” he muttered. “It’ll fade.”

Geralt’s arms wrapped around him, pulling him closer. “Cold?”

“Not anymore.”

Jaskier was positive he wouldn’t be able to sleep, tucked beneath Geralt’s chin and reveling in the sweat-leather-potion scent of his Witcher. 

He believed this up until the very moment that he closed his eyes against the linen of Geralt’s shirt and opened them in the winter twilight of the unending lake.

The familiar landscape of his nightmares spread out around him, and Jaskier shuddered. 

“So you remained in mortal coil and thus repeated Destiny’s toils. Now you lie in the arms of a friend, prepared once more for your heart to rend.” The dream-void of Baba Yaga curled toward him, both larger than the unending world and consumed by the brilliant winter light.

Jaskier turned his face to her shifting emptiness. “Again and again I bargained fair and Destiny has dealt despair. My hope rekindled brightest flame; though in the night, you call my name.”

The void reached out a hand that wasn’t a hand and caressed his face. Detachedly, Jaskier’s stomach rolled with nausea at the cold, wet, emptiness against his skin. In his dream, he leaned into the not-hand and smiled up at the faceless aspects of her shadows.

“I’ll call your name, I’ll bring you here; I’ll banish all that causes fear. In my arms you’d find a home, you’d never seek again to roam.”

The thought should frighten him, should break cold sweat across his shoulders. Jaskier half-expected to wake to a rabbiting heart and Geralt’s worried face.

Instead, he pushed forward into Baba Yaga’s darkness and allowed the shadowed edges of her to mingle with his own light. “Thrice I gave my heart away, thrice unable there to stay. Now I seek to gain it back, and so repair what I still lack.”

The shadows withdrew and Jaskier opened his eyes. Instead of a void, he looked into the youthful, wizened face of the Witch Between. He had not thought that his unbroken mind could recall the dichotomy of her, but she looked upon him with a horrifying kindness that could not be anything but true.

“Julian Alfred Pankratz.”

Each syllable of his name was a blade, tearing through the layers of his skin like paper. Jaskier cried out, falling to his knees.

The fear that had been absent overwhelmed him now. His heart raced, sweat beaded on his upper lip. Vaguely, he could feel someone shaking him, but Baba Yaga’s summons held him fast in dreaming.

“Please,” he begged, breathless.

She gripped his chin with gentle claws. “Your path will guide you from this shore, between what was and what is more. When you return you will find me, and in your freedom, make me free.”

Something pressed into Jaskier’s sweating palm. He clutched it, adrift, and the ice beneath his knees yawned wide.

Jaskier rolled away from the hands that pulled his shoulders and retched watery bile across the floor.

"Jaskier!” Geralt hissed, pulling him up before he could tip over into his own mess. “Fuck.”

“S-sorry,” Jaskier shuddered. He wiped the back of his hand across his mouth.

There was something clutched between his tight-clenched fingers. With effort, Jaskier relaxed his grip.

“What happened?” Geralt asked, guiding back to sit on the blankets. “I couldn’t wake you.”

“You reek of magic,” Yennefer croaked from the bed. “You didn’t dream of a Nilfgaard sorceress, did you?”

Jaskier closed his hand around the silver seed and pressed his fist to his quivering lips. Too overcome to muster words, he shook his head.

“Magic?” Geralt echoed. “A curse?”

“I’m fine,” Jaskier choked out, cutting of Yennefer’s response. “I’m fine. Trust me.”

Geralt’s hand, blazing with heat, pressed against the back of Jaskier’s neck. He leaned into the grounding touch.

Tears pricked at his eyes and he was alarmed to realize that he couldn’t hold them back.

“Alright,” Geralt whispered, pulling Jaskier to rest against the crook of his shoulder. “I trust you. You’re alright.”

The winter dawn cast cold shadows in the crowded room. Jaskier, clutching Geralt’s shirt with one hand and the silver seed with his other, breathed through his fear and paid no notice to the light that fell upon them. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: Vomiting
> 
> I promise there are more interactions between Jaskier and Geralt coming up. That is not the end of their discussions about the Mountain and their friendship in general. Just because Jaskier's forgiven Geralt, doesn't mean he trusts him to be better.
> 
> ...Really sorry about Roach. But it wasn't like Geralt had her with him at the end of the show?? I've been literally agonizing about how to handle that since I started writing this.
> 
> As always, let me know what you think! I'm so excited to write Jaskier and Ciri's interactions :)


	13. Hunted

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jaskier laid a hand against Geralt’s flushed cheek. His skin was pink with a chill he did not feel, but Geralt’s face was warm.
> 
> “Do you trust me, Geralt of Rivia?”
> 
> Geralt’s face fell, his hand went slack on Jaskier’s arm and the tip of his sword lowered into the snow.

Eventually, Yennefer chased Geralt away to pack supplies so that she could confirm Jaskier’s claims. Jaskier missed the encompassing protection of Geralt’s warmth immediately, and he clung to the blankets that still smelled of their mingled sleep as he submitted to Yennefer’s ministrations.

She gripped Jaskier’s chin in a thickly bandaged hand. His stomach turned at the rough scrape of the cloth against his neck. 

“What happened to your hands?”

Yennefer scowled. “Sodden burned. What did you dream of?”

“Nothing.” 

She shook his jaw, grip too weak to squeeze him. Jaskier allowed the jarring of his dignity, sitting on his fingers before he could give into the instinct to slap her away. 

When his head stopped swimming, Jaskier sighed. He watched Geralt as he answered. “Not Nilfgaard. Baba Yaga.”

Geralt’s hands froze on the bundle he’d been wrapping. When he began again, his movements were wooden. Yennefer dropped Jaskier’s chin and rocked back. The lines of her forehead smoothed from concern to regret.

“What’s Baba Yaga?” Princess Cirilla asked. She was sitting up in the bed, watching Yennefer tend Jaskier with open curiosity.

"The Witch Between, Fae of the Amells. I’ve written several songs of her. Perhaps I can sing them for you on the road, Princess.” Jaskier inclined his head in his best approximation of a bow. 

He was too tired to feel ashamed, even sat next to a puddle of his own bile. The morning felt surreal, suspended within the confines of his chambers. The most powerful mage on the continent knelt before him, and the princess of Cintra watched him from atop his own rumpled bed. Not ten feet away, the man who bore his heart ignored his existence. 

That, at least, was familiar.

Yennefer flicked him. “How did you know?”

“Bard Jaskier used to play at court sometimes,” Cirilla answered for him. “He taught me how to cheat at jacks, but Eist said that I wouldn’t keep my friends if I was dishonest.”

“Eist was always wiser than I,” Jaskier allowed. “I’m gratified that you remember me, Cirilla.”

“Ciri,” she corrected quickly. “Or Fiona, for other people.”

“We need to go.” Geralt tossed the bundled winter clothes across the bed. “Ciri, Yen, these are for you. We’ll see to the horses while you dress.”

Jaskier pulled his own clothing from the wardrobe, throwing his sweat-soiled tunic across the mess he’d made. Geralt had packed his things already, familiar with Jaskier’s gear even after years apart. All that was left was his lute. 

Jaskier nestled it into the case with anxious tenderness and, after a moment of hesitation, tucked the silver seed into the cushioned velvet lining. It shone against the rich cloth, impossible and bright. 

Geralt was watching when he looked up. They were almost close enough to touch, and Jaskier ached with the remembered sensation of Geralt’s arms around him. But that was in the liminal pre-dawn, when they were primed for intimacy. 

The sun was up, and the distance between them was illuminated once again.

***

The stables were only able to spare two palfreys and a mule for a long journey. Jaskier claimed the mule with a smile, shrugging off the groom’s apologies.

“Your cousin signed off on four horses, sir, but Ghost threw a shoe and--”

“Relax, my dear boy. I’m sure my mule and I shall get along splendidly, and our party is well used to being a mount short.”

The boy bowed out, glancing curiously at Geralt’s hooded figure. Thankfully, he was too well trained to linger or snoop. 

Geralt scowled and began inspecting the horses with a sharp eye. “I didn’t know you had a cousin.”

"You never asked,” Jaskier murmured. The mule nibbled a bit of sugar from his palm, settling beneath his hands. “Don’t worry, I didn’t leave anyone behind to travel with you.”

“That’s not--” Geralt cut himself off with a sigh. “I didn’t even know that you were from Redania.”

“Does it matter? My origins were hardly relevant to our travels.”

“Relevance never limited you before.”

Jaskier flinched and began strapping his gear to the mule’s harness. “Apologies, then.”

“Hmm.”

Out of practice, it took Jaskier a moment to dissect Geralt’s grunt. This, he felt, was something along the lines of:  _ You are reacting in ways I did not predict and the fact that we cannot fall back into our familiar banter unsettles me. In spite of this upset, I am too uncomfortable to navigate to the central issue. Instead I shall wait in silence until you give in and take the lead or until Yennefer and Ciri return and bear the conversational burden. _

The silent air between them itched at Jaskier’s skin. He shuddered and offered an olive branch. “I’m glad you and Fiona found each other. When I heard that Cintra fell, I feared the worst.”

Geralt shared the story as they loaded the horses. It was stilted, short on details, and Jaskier suspected that Geralt censored much of it. Still, he shared it without Jaskier having to prompt him further, which was a minor miracle on its own.

“--and then we found Yen and started north.” Geralt finished as Yennefer and Ciri approached, both bedecked in borrowed winter finery. Jaskier had chosen the clothing in darkness, and in the morning light his faux pas was apparent. The dresses clashed horribly with the underskirts and cloaks he’d chosen. They fit well enough, but little else could be said of them.

Jaskier muffled a snort. Geralt glanced over at him and smiled, camaraderie briefly restored in a moment of innocent mischief.

“Yen found us,” Ciri corrected, grinning up at Yennefer.

“We found each other,” Yennefer allowed. She looked at Jaskier shrewdly. “And then I found you. In the Redanian palace, of all places.”

“He has a cousin,” Geralt provided. 

_ So much for camaraderie, _ Jaskier grumbled to himself. He sighed and mounted the mule, glancing up at the rising sun.

They left the city in single file: Jaskier, Yennefer with Ciri, and Geralt at the rear. Once the gates were well behind them, Geralt pulled ahead and Jaskier fell back to ride with Yennefer.

Ciri watched him with wide eyes as he pulled close. “Have you really known Geralt for twenty years, Bard Jaskier?”

“Just Jaskier, please,” he corrected quickly. “If I’m not allowed to use titles, neither are you. And yes, it’s been something in the realm of twenty years.” 

“Is he your oldest friend?” Ciri asked.

Jaskier laughed, shocked and helpless in the face of the child’s frank curiosity. “No,” he admitted, half in the spirit of honesty and half to watch Geralt jerk around and stare back at them. “I’ve known several friends much longer than Geralt.”

“Then he’s your best friend,” she said with an air of assurance.

Yennefer caught the rigidity of Jaskier’s expression and neatly jumped in. “Or perhaps your best friend is this mysterious Redanian cousin?”

“Not helpful,” Jaskier muttered to Yennefer out of the corner of his mouth before turning back to Ciri. “I travel too much for best friends, my dear. I have many beloved acquaintances and a few steady friends, which is more than enough for me.”

Ciri frowned. “Geralt said that you made friends everywhere you went.”

Jaskier looked up at the Witcher, riding several horse lengths ahead. He was half turned so that his profile was visible past the fall of his hair, listening to their conversation without subtlety.

Witchers didn’t blush, but Jaskier always could detect Geralt’s supreme embarrassment at a hundred paces.

“Well, friendship means different things to different people. In your lessons, did you ever learn about concepts with variable definitions?”

The rest of the morning was spent discussing philosophy and the ethics of human nature, which passed the time delightfully. They rested at noon and when they departed again, Yennefer and Ciri led the way as Geralt fell back to ride with Jaskier.

“You’re good with her,” Geralt said. Ahead of them, Ciri and Yennefer were doing something with a roadside weed and a small pebble.

Jaskier grinned. “I like children,” he confessed. “They’re much more fun to teach than university students.”

“I remember. You used to play in the streets for them.”

“Yes, well it’s been many, many years but I can still remember being one of them: chasing the echoes of music through the streets only to find that the tavern doors were barred to me. My friends and I would dance in the stable yards to the minstrels playing inside, though we could rarely hear it well.” He grinned. It had been years since he thought of Albin and Oliwia.

Their lives must have been quiet and unassuming, he had found no records of their marriage, family, or deaths in any of the parochial libraries. They were lost to time entirely, though their childhood remained a treasured memory to him.

The song he had composed for their wedding rose to the forefront and he hummed the chorus thoughtlessly.  _ The birds do sing, hey ding-a-ling-ding, sweet lovers love the spring. _

Geralt offered a quiet ‘hmm’ and listened to him hum. “You don’t often speak of your childhood.”

_ Fuck _ . “Not much to say. I was a child, and then I was not.”

“Your family--”

“Oh honestly! They’re dead, Geralt. My family is dead.”

Geralt scowled, gripping his horse’s reins convulsively. The mare tossed her head, irritated by the tug on her bit. “I’m sorry.”

Jaskier pinched the bridge of his nose.  _ You said you’d forgive him _ , he reminded himself irritably,  _ stop being such a prick. _

“I had a sister,” he said at last, after considering and rejecting half a dozen refractions of the truth. “Her name was Zofia. I last saw her when she was only a little younger than Ciri.”

Geralt leaned precariously across the gap between their horses and gripped Jaskier’s knee. “Jas,” he waited until Jaskier was looking at him before continuing, “I’m sorry.”

Jaskier tentatively placed his hand atop Geralt’s, dragging his thumb across the mountains and valleys of Geralt’s pale knuckles. “Life goes on,” he said with feeble conviction.

The Witcher released him and pushed himself upright. His face was set in lines of discomfort. “Witchers take children young,” he said slowly. “Some by the Law of Surprise, some as street children and orphans. My mother--” he broke off, eyes distant.

“You don’t have to tell me, Geralt,” Jaskier said. The offered out hung tenuously between them. “No one’s keeping track.”

He shook his head and carried on as though Jaskier hadn’t spoken. “My mother gave me to them. She chose to. I was four, perhaps, or younger.”

It was Jaskier’s turn to reach across and grip Geralt’s shoulder. He struggled to find words of kindness that wouldn’t seem like platitudes. At last, he offered silence, the ease of companionship that had carried them through nearly twenty years of travel.

Geralt guided his mare closer and they rode together through the evening until Ciri began to complain of exhaustion and it was time to stop.

***

Jaskier blew a pale lock of Ciri’s hair away from his nose for the fourth time that hour and adjusted her grip on the neck of the lute. “Now, my dear, you’ll have to stretch your pinky quite far for this next chord. The transition will be difficult at full speed, but it will be easier as your hands grow.”

Ciri strummed, scowled at the sour note, and stretched her pinky further. “I’m much better with the lap harp,” she muttered defiantly.

“Harps are stunning instruments, and if that is where your passion lies then I shall attempt to acquire one at the next outpost,” Jaskier assured her. “For now, another F chord, please. You’ve almost got it.”

“I’ll never get it,” she whined. In spite of this assertion, her fingers stretched again and produced a perfect, if hesitant, chord.

Jaskier grinned. “Four days of travel and you’ve already mastered a third of the chords in Toss a Coin! You need to have more faith in yourself, you scamp.”

He prodded her sides lightly, laughing as she yelped and slapped at him. Geralt looked back at them with a soft smile, taking in their playful jabs.

Yennefer trotted close enough to fling a pine cone at Jaskier’s shoulder and call, “Jaskier, if you keep tickling her she will drop your precious lute and I won’t--”

She fell silent and went rigid in her saddle. Her mare danced beneath her, anxious with confusion.

Geralt whirled and cantered back to them, drawing his steel sword and watching the woods. Ciri stiffened and leaned into Jaskier’s grip. He could feel the beat of her racing heart as though it were his own.

“Yen, what is it?” Geralt asked as he came alongside them.

Yennefer shuddered. “Portals. Less than a mile east and north of here. Fringilla’s work.”

"How did she find us?” Ciri asked. Her voice was small, thready with the rush of fear. 

Jaskier squeezed her, offering what little comfort he could. “We’re hardly an inconspicuous group. Can we outrun them?” He directed this to Yennefer, who still watched the world through glazed eyes, perceptions focused beyond what he could see.

“Not if we wish to stay on course,” Yennefer answered.

Jaskier kneed his mule around until they faced west and slightly south. “Then we go off course,” he concluded.

“Jas, you should take Ciri--” Geralt began, watching Yennefer.

“Don’t do that, Geralt. As long as we have hope, we stay together.” Jaskier forced his tone to remain even, though his voice threatened to crack beneath the pressure of his fear. “Are you with me?”

Geralt tore his eyes from Yennefer and focused first on Ciri, shivering in Jaskier’s arms, and then at Jaskier.

What he saw there seemed to shake him. He blanched, then nodded and gripped Yennefer’s reins. 

Jaskier led the way through the deep snow of the forest. They couldn’t push through the snowdrifts faster than a walk, and even that pace threatened to exhaust the horses.

He glanced back only once. Geralt rode behind him, alert to any sounds in the shadowed forest that surrounded them. Yennefer brought up the rear. Soft light glowed between her palms and the trail behind them was collapsing into itself. It wasn’t hidden entirely, but it could have been cut weeks ago rather than hours. 

The fear didn’t fade, but running for their life soon grew quite dull. The music and conversation that had livened their journey through the forest trails had given way to silent terror, but the monotony of the road remained constant. It felt as though Jaskier had fallen into a sort of trance, lulled into fixation by the fall of snow and the quiet murmur of the wind.

He was so caught in his task that when they broke through the trees and found themselves in a snow-blanketed clearing, Jaskier nearly didn’t recognize where they were.

Nearly.

“They found our trail,” Yennefer hissed.

Geralt slid from his horse’s back and turned to Jaskier. “Take Ciri,” he ordered, “You know the pass to Kaer Morhen. You’ll find my teacher there. Vesemir. Tell him--”

Jaskier slid from the mule. With fear-numb fingers he unlatched his lute case and caught the silver seed that tumbled out.

“Jaskier?” Ciri asked. Her voice wavered.

Jaskier smiled thinly up at her. “Do you know where we are, Ciri?”

She shook her head. Geralt scowled and started to speak - to ask what Jaskier was doing, perhaps, or just to continue with his instructions - but Jaskier cut him off.

“This used to be my home. We called it Lettenhove. Would you like to see where my family is buried?”

“Are you short of a marble?” Geralt growled, wading through the snow to grip Jaskier’s elbow. “Nilfgaard approaches. We need to get Ciri to safety. Jaskier, please.”

Jaskier laid a hand against Geralt’s flushed cheek. His skin was pink with a chill he did not feel, but Geralt’s face was warm.

“Do you trust me, Geralt of Rivia?”

Geralt’s face fell, his hand went slack on Jaskier’s arm and the tip of his sword lowered into the snow. “I-- Jaskier, Nilfgaard will--”

“Come see where my sister is buried.”

Jaskier helped Ciri from the mule and guided her through the snow drifts toward the distant burial mounds. 

Geralt and Yennefer followed, silent and afraid.

When they reached Zofia’s headstone, Jaskier bent to push the snow away. The buttercups had faded further, though her name was still visible. He showed the flowers to Ciri, ignoring the fear in her eyes as she watched him. 

She likely thought him mad. Perhaps she wasn’t wrong.

“Jaskier means buttercup, you know. That’s what I used to call her,” he told Ciri with a smile. 

She was shivering, full body convulsions from the cold. “It means dandelion,” she told him frankly. “Jaskier. It means dandelion.”

“It didn’t always.” He looked into blue-green eyes and prayed for strength. “I can keep you safe, can keep us all safe, Ciri. But you have to trust me. Do you trust me?”

“Jaskier, they’re coming,” Yennefer bit out. She was still mounted, bent double over her horse’s neck, strained with the effort of protecting them from Nilfgaard’s mage. “Whatever you're planning, either do it or run.”

He wouldn’t look at Geralt, couldn’t bear to face what he might see.

Jaskier knelt above Zofia’s grave and pressed the silver seed into the snow.

The lyrics to Her Sweet Kiss fell from his tongue without conscious thought. He had written the song originally as a bitter ode to Geralt and Yennefer. Now, kneeling at their feet and praying for salvation, he remembered the story he’d whispered into Yennefer’s dark hair that night at the inn.

_ Destiny knelt to kiss his feet; pressed kisses to his palms; and rose to gently kiss his brow.  _

And so four lives were intrinsically altered, pulled together on Destiny’s tapestry against all reason, logic, and hope.

_ A gift _ , Jaskier thought,  _ a curse. And everything in between. _

He sang and pressed his palm against the snow. With his music, he wove a net - not to call a soul from beyond the veil, but to call a tree to bloom.

One hundred Staryk souls had heard the old magic of his music and followed him through the mist. Now he lit the path with his despair and channeled winter light to the twilight dimness of the Staryk realm.

He was a Staryk noble. Between his fingers, a white shoot leapt from the snow and began to climb.

Ciri cried out, stumbling back, and even Yennefer straightened to peer at the tree that grew to the rhythm of Jaskier’s song.

He did not stop until flowers burst to life above their heads. Only when the crisp, sweet scent reached him did he allow silence to fall once more.

Like the pull of a lodestone, he could feel the silver road forming in the trees, guiding him from one home to another. Jaskier pushed himself up and turned to his companions.

“If you follow me, you must follow me. Nilfgaard will not reach us, but the danger will not be gone - only different. Do you understand?”

“Follow you where?” Geralt asked. 

Jaskier could not meet his eyes. “Into the heart of winter, and beyond.”

“Geralt, stop being an ass and go.” Yennefer’s voice was tense. 

Ciri slipped her chilled fingers into Jaskier’s hand. He turned and led her back to the trees. She still carried his lute, but they left everything else in the snow banks of Lettenhove-that-was.

When they reached the silver road, Ciri gasped. “What is this?” It rang beneath her boots like a bell.

“The king’s road,” Jaskier answered. He glanced back at Geralt and Yennefer, following cautiously at their heels.

Geralt tapped it with his toe and listened to the chime thoughtfully. “I’ve read of this,” he said. “It’s only mentioned in the oldest Witcher texts of Kaer Morhen. They call it--”

“The Staryk road,” Yennefer finished for him. She had straightened as soon as her horse stepped onto its glassy surface. The strain was gone from between her brows.

They need not fear from Nilfgaard on this road, at least.

Jaskier turned from their searching eyes and began to walk. With every step his heart soared, it sank, it pounded his ribs and pleaded for freedom.

Compared to the slog they’d made before, it felt as though they’d sprouted wings. Too soon the midday sun faded and the twilight of the Staryk realm hung over them. At his side, Ciri’s shivering slowed and stopped. 

When the door to the mountain loomed before them, Jaskier pulled Ciri to a halt and turned to face the three of them squarely.

“Do not use our names while you are here. Do not wander, do not leave my side. Trust no one but myself, but offer no insult. Wield no weapons and muster no chaos unless you actively fear for your life.” He steeled himself and met Geralt’s eyes squarely. In the bleak silver darkness, the fire in them blazed like starlight. “You must trust me.”

“What can we call each other, then?” Ciri asked, her voice very small.

Jaskier bent and gripped her shoulder. “You can still call me Jaskier. And we can use titles. ‘Princess,’ ‘Witcher,’ and ‘Sorceress’ will serve us well.”

“But we can call you Jaskier?” Geralt asked. There was something in his voice that broke Jaskier’s heart.

He smiled, but there was no joy in it. “It isn’t my Name,” he told them. 

The doors swung open before Geralt could reply and the Staryk Lord stepped out.

He was as fierce as Jaskier half-remembered. Winter bloomed upon his skin, sharp crystallized angles and shifting swells. He changed from one blink to the next and yet remained immutable.

“By snowtree’s bloom you are returned. What bargain shall you make for entry?”

Jaskier willed steel to his spine. “A Staryk noble need never bargain to enter their lord’s realm.”

“And yet I count but one noble here.” 

“They stand before you at my invitation, lord. Am I a noble, entitled to the courtesy of guests, or am I a servant without such rights?”

Jaskier had never seen the Staryk Lord smile before, but he could read satisfaction in the tilt of his head. “Enter, then. Be welcome, guests of the Glass Mountain’s bard.”

He stepped aside and Jaskier led them into the mountain. As the doors boomed shut at their backs, he swallowed down the nausea of his fear and prayed that he had chosen the correct path.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter took me literally a whole week to write. The process was not made easier by the fact that Google Docs has started randomly applying autocorrect so that 'Geralt' will change to 'Gerald' and 'Jaskier' switches to 'Jackie' even after I've typed them and moved on. By far my least favorite glitch I've experienced.
> 
> As always, let me know what you think of the chapter!!


	14. Preparations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “My hands are shaking,” he said. His voice was very small.
> 
> Geralt reached out and gripped his wrist. He didn’t smile, but his eyes were soft. “Steady enough for this,” he answered.

Jaskier kept his back stiff and his eyes straight ahead as he led Geralt, Yennefer, and Ciri through the entrance hall and up the winding stairs to his chambers. The halls weren’t crowded, thankfully. Most of the court would be dressing for supper. The servants, bless their gossiping hearts, would have the word about before the gong was struck.

“Is this all ice?” Ciri asked, trailing her fingers delicately across the walls as they walked. “It doesn’t feel cold.”

“You’re here by the invitation of the court, with the Staryk Lord’s blessing,” Jaskier explained. “So long as you’re here, you needn’t fear the frost.”

At this new information, Geralt’s brow wrinkled in thought. He and Yennefer were walking a pace behind Ciri and Jaskier. Yennefer clutched Geralt’s arm, her nails dug into the crook of his elbow where the vambrace gapped.

Jaskier looked away.

“The glass mountain,” Yennefer mused. “The Winter Court. What other surprises do you have stuffed up your sleeves, Jaskier?”

He offered a narrow grin and opened the doors to his chambers. “I am a fathomless well, witch.”

The rooms were utterly unchanged. There wasn’t even any dust, though Jaskier wasn’t sure if that was a product of Staryk magic or a devoted cleaning staff. He didn’t linger over it.

He rang the bell to summon assistance. Before the chime had faded to silence, the doors melted open once more. Ciri jumped with fright as a servant - one of the general servants of the court - stepped into the rooms. Jaskier smiled at her, well remembering how strange the mountain’s ways had seemed to him at first. 

Pushing the nostalgia aside, he listed out the clothing they required. The servant listened attentively to his requests. When he’d finished estimating their sizes, with a few corrections from Yennefer, Jaskier hesitated.

“Anything else, lord?”

“My servant. She and her daughter still live?”

“Yes, lord.”

“When the items are located, they will be the ones to return with them.”

The servant bowed deeply. “Yes, lord.” 

When they were alone again, Geralt scowled and dropped his swords in the corner of the room, leaning up against the tally wall. Jaskier was doing his best to ignore the marks he’d gouged into the ice, though they loomed ominously at his back like a physical weight.

“I don’t need new clothes,” Geralt growled.

Jaskier scoffed. “You will  _ not _ be wearing black to court,” he said firmly. “That is non-negotiable, my dear Witcher.”

“Colors mean something here?” Yennefer asked. Her eyes were sharp as she watched him beneath her lashes. Most of her attention appeared to be focused on his bookshelf, which was filled with texts on musical theory and folklore. 

He had bargained those from the Staryk knight, who had brought them from the sunlit world in exchange for children’s tales. It had amused him to hear the stories humans told to warn their offspring of the Fae.

It had never really amused Jaskier, though he appreciated the books.

He crossed to his wardrobe and began to pick through the clothing he’d left behind. “Yes. It communicates status. The cub and I will wear shades of white. You and Geralt will wear a light gray.”

“Is that wise?” Geralt asked, pulling Ciri close. “Anonymity would be more appropriate--”

“They don’t care for the affairs of men. They do care for wealth and power. A princess with two bondsmen* nominally wields both, far more than the ward of a wandering warrior.” Jaskier selected a doublet of pale ivory, embroidered with a field of silver flowers, and a pair of off-white trousers. He ducked behind the vanity screen with his bounty and began to change.

He could hear Yennefer move to the open wardrobe, snooping without the least bit of shame. “Tell me, Jaskier, are you a changeling?”

“No, certainly not. My parents were as ordinary as--” he peeked above the screen to look between the Witcher, the sorceress, and the chaos-rich princess. “Er, they were very ordinary.”

Ciri ducked out of Geralt’s hold and followed Yennefer’s lead. Jaskier heard her poking through the shelves near his bed. “How did you get here, then? That--you said you were a Staryk noble?”

“I bargained for my rights when I was only a little older than you. Not intentional, if I’m honest, but accidental bargains are still bargains. Which is why you must let me do all the talking.”

Jaskier twisted, struggling to pull the trousers over his thighs. He hadn’t realized how much muscle he had gained, simply from walking after Geralt for all these years. It didn’t help that the silk doublet was tight across his shoulders. 

He should have requested clothing for himself as well.

“You said that there was danger here.” Geralt’s voice was nearer to the screen than Jaskier had expected. 

He jerked back, tripping over his discarded tunic. The movement sent him stumbling out into the room, though thankfully the trousers were secure. He straightened, tugging his clothing into place and attempting to gather his dignity.

Geralt made a sound like a dying animal and Yennefer began to laugh. Jaskier flushed and did his best to ignore them.

“It’s not as though the Staryk Lord allows his court to come and go at will. I have such rights, in theory, but we’ll have to bargain for you.” He examined himself in the mirror, twisting to make sure he hadn’t split the seams. 

Geralt cleared his throat. “I’ve never seen you wear white,” he croaked after a moment.

Yennefer laughed harder.

Jaskier scowled, abandoning the mirror. “Well after a few years without any other options, I grew rather sick of it. Here, I think there was a razor somewhere…”

“Jaskier, what is this?” Ciri called. “Is this how long you stayed here?”

He was looking up at her before he could stop himself. She stood near Geralt’s weapons, tracing the deep gouges in the wall with curious fingers.

Jaskier flinched. He wanted to pull her back from the marks, wanted the wall to melt away and drown him. Somehow he hadn’t considered that he would be asked to explain  _ this _ . He would almost prefer the blades of Nilfgaard to Ciri’s curiosity.

“There are ninety-nine,” Ciri continued, heedless of his silent agony. “Were you here for ninety-nine years?”

Geralt stepped between them, neatly putting his bulk between Jaskier and the wall. “There will be time for questions later.” He jerked his chin. “The razor, bard?”

Jaskier led Geralt to the bathing chambers, leaving Yennefer and Ciri to entertain themselves with his possessions.

“Thank you,” he muttered, pulling out his razor and the shaving soap.

Geralt watched him steadily. “Do the marks count the years?”

Away from the physical account of his trials, the dread was not so thick. Jaskier hesitated and began to whip the soap into a lather. “No,” he answered. His voice was almost inaudible beneath the gentle swish of the brush. “Not the years.”

Geralt nodded and sat down on the stool. Holding Jaskier’s eyes, he tilted his jaw in what could only be an invitation.

Jaskier twitched. He had helped Geralt shave before, of course. The Witcher wasn’t vain, but the itch of stubble irritated him. Especially when it picked up the gore of the hunt. It was easier to be clean shaven, though it was sometimes difficult to manage it on his own.

It wouldn’t be difficult now.

“My hands are shaking,” he said. His voice was very small.

Geralt reached out and gripped his wrist. He didn’t smile, but his eyes were soft. “Steady enough for this,” he answered.

Jaskier cleaned the sweat and grime from Geralt’s face and neck with a rag before applying the foam. As he worked, he spoke, hardly tracking what he said except to keep his tongue busy as his fingers lingered on the edge of Geralt’s jaw and the lines that creased the corners of his lips.

“The foam is my own invention. Staryk aren’t human, you see. When I began to grow hair on my face and chest, it actually frightened my servant. She’d never seen a man with facial hair before.” The razor whispered across Geralt’s cheek where Jaskier’s fingers pulled the skin taut. 

“Hmm.”

He chuckled. “I had to teach myself to shave. My father showed me the basics when I was younger, but I left home before I needed to put theory into practice. I used to cut myself bloody, before I figured out the lather.”

Geralt muttered something in response, but the words were distorted. Jaskier pushed against his bottom lip, stretching out the crease of his chin and pulling down.

He rinsed the razor and shifted his attention to the column of Geralt’s throat. Geralt swallowed and the skin shifted beneath his fingers. Jaskier hesitated, trembling, as the razor passed over Geralt’s adam’s apple.

Witcher’s pulses were slower than the average man’s, so Jaskier knew the racing heartbeat was his own.

“Geralt,” Jaskier whispered. The name hung between them, quivering in the winter air. “I--”

“Feainnewedd!” Someone called from the entrance hall.

Simultaneously, something crashed, Ciri yelped, and Yennefer cursed.

Jaskier dropped the razor and both he and Geralt raced into the main room.

The washbasin from his bedside table lay in shards across the floor. Ciri sat on his bed, staring down at the mess guiltily while Yennefer knelt beside his servant, picking up the largest pieces.

Jaskier registered the situation without concern. His focus was entirely centered on the young woman, beautiful and proud, racing toward him.

“Sor’ca!” He wrapped his arms around her and spun them both, laughing and pressing kisses to her cheek. “Melitele’s tits, you’ve grown! Look at you!”

She pulled back, joining him in laughter as bright as the winter dawn. “And look at you! The sunlight has treated you well, my brother. You could pass for a warrior now.”

Jaskier shook his head and reeled her back in. “You’re sillier than I recall. Tell me everything. Are you apprenticed?”

“Yes, to the Keeper of the Beasts. He says I am most promising.”

“Of course you are.” He relished the strength in her arms and the chill of her smile against the skin of his neck. “Oh, I have missed you, dear one.”

“And I, you. You must tell me of your adventures. Will you sing at supper tonight? I shall plan to attend if you will.”

“If our lord allows it, I would be honored.” Jaskier let her slip reluctantly from his embrace and clasped her hands. “Here, come greet my friends. I traveled with them for many of the years that I was absent.”

Sor’ca eyed him sidelong, masking a smile at whatever she read in his expression, and turned to greet the others.

“Apologies for my abrupt arrival,” she said, offering a shallow bow without releasing Jaskier’s hands. “I am glad to meet my brother’s friends.”

“Brother?” Geralt asked. He’d wiped the foam from his jaw, though Jaskier could clearly see the places they had missed.

Sor’ca’s eyes lingered on Geralt’s broad shoulders and the twisting fall of his white hair. She squeezed Jaskier’s hands. “Yes, sir. He named me so when I was young.”

“The young lord is very generous,” his servant said, rising to throw the shards of glass away.

Jaskier dropped Sor’ca’s hands and crossed the room to lift her mother up instead. His servant set aside the broken glass as he approached and accepted the embrace with a laugh.

“And I have long regretted allowing propriety to stay my generosity with you, Aine,” he told her, squeezing her shoulders tightly.

She pulled him close and sighed, still bubbling with laughter as he swayed them wildly across the floor. “Alright, Feainnewedd. Alright. You flatter me.”

“Propriety?” Yennefer asked, eyeing them. Her eyes were cold.

Jaskier released his servant - Aine - and reached to help Yennefer to her feet. “To give someone a lesser name is to create a bond, of sorts. Friends may make such bonds freely, though they often don’t. Between a noble and a servant, the exchange of names is…”

“Unusual,” Aine finished. She swept the last shards up into a tray and smiled at Ciri. “Are you well, little one? You did not step in any glass?”

Ciri shook her head. 

Sor’ca leapt upon the bed beside her, grinning as Ciri bounced. “Are you Feainnewedd’s daughter, then?”

“Sor’ca!” Jaskier cried, embarrassment heating his cheeks to a glowing red. “Honestly, you’re incorrigible.”

“I’m his friend,” Ciri told the Staryk girl primly. “We’ve only known each other a week.”

“So little!” Sor’ca said with a grin. She turned to Yennefer. “And you, lady?”

Yennefer quirked an eyebrow up and hid a grin. “Some years, though not well. I would not have called us friends until recently.”

“But you would now?” Jaskier couldn’t help but ask.

Her elbows were as sharp as ever. He rubbed the bruise blooming on his ribs with rueful amusement. 

Sor’ca ignored their antics in favor of questioning the remaining member of Jaskier’s humble band. “What of you, sir? How long have you known my brother?”

“He has been my friend for twenty years,” Geralt answered. He didn’t look at Jaskier. 

It felt as though his eyes might bug out from his skull. Jaskier whirled and pointed an accusing finger at Geralt. “ _ Now _ you call me ‘friend,’ you scamp? Two decades of denial but this is your epiphany?”

“You aren’t friends?” Sor’ca asked, her face falling in confusion.

Jaskier spluttered. “We  _ are _ ,” he said at last. “So there!” 

Aine tittered and began laying out the clothing she had brought, carefully unfurling the yards of pale silk. They wouldn’t fit perfectly, of course, but at least they weren’t black. Geralt retreated to the washroom to finish changing, and Sor’ca offered to help Ciri with her laces.

Jaskier followed Aine out to the hall. “Has all been well for you?” He asked when they were alone.

She pressed a gentle hand to his cheek. “We are well. Better now that you are returned.”

“I must leave again,” Jaskier admitted. He was glad Sor’ca was still inside, though it felt cowardly to admit it. “The cub… we cannot stay.”

“And yet you may return,” she said breezily. “Your presence proves it.”

Jaskier tilted his head in acknowledgement and sighed. “I must ask. Is he--”

“Alive and well, Feainnewedd. He will see you tonight, I’m sure. These days he is somewhat withdrawn from the machinations of court, but wild beasts could not keep our lord from seeing you tonight.”

He blinked at her possessive title for Nauczyciel. With insight like a lightning strike, he realized that both Aine and Sor’ca no longer wore the silver-gray of court livery. Instead, they dressed in creamy white only a few shades darker than his own garments.

“He’s made you his bondswomen,” he breathed.

Aine nodded. “To honor you,” she confirmed. “He has been good to us.”

“I made you fetch my clothing like a servant,” Jaskier hissed in distress. “Oh, Aine, I’m sorry.”

“Assisting you has always been a pleasure, sweet boy. Especially for the chance to meet your young man. You chose well.”

Jaskier buried his face in his hands. “Am I that obvious?” He whined.

She patted his shoulder. “You guard your heart,” she assured him. “But it is hard to hide a connection such as yours.”

“He’s in love with the witch.” The admission stung like the pull of a scabbed wound. Jaskier had spent years growing accustomed to Geralt’s devotion to Yennefer, flighty as she was. He had, in the end, even come to respect and like the woman who held his Witcher’s heart.

But that didn’t make it easy.

The gong saved him from having to explain further. Jaskier ducked back inside, checking that Ciri and Sor’ca were both almost done. Yennefer sat near his mirror, pinning her hair up with deft fingers. The pale gown draped elegantly, emphasizing the olive darkness of her skin. She threw a pin at him when he whistled as he passed.

Jaskier slid into the washroom, eager to shave before they greeted the court. When the door opened, his mind went blank.

Geralt had always borne something of Winter’s ferocity beneath his skin. Now he wore it openly. The tunic clung to the slope of his shoulders and the swell of his arms. His eyes glowed vibrantly in the backdrop of his hair, his skin, his clothes.

“I hate wearing white,” Geralt grumbled, meeting Jaskier’s eyes in the mirror.

Jaskier’s mouth was cotton. “Believe you me, if there were any other option, I would take it,” he responded on autopilot, wincing at the rasp in his voice. “You finished shaving?”

“Yes.” Geralt turned and grabbed the bowl and brush. “Sit, I’ll return the favor.”

The thought of Geralt’s hands on his bare neck sent goosebumps from Jaskier’s shoulders to his knees. “We’re short on time,” he hedged.

“And you miss spots when you rush,” Geralt pointed out reasonably. “Sit, Jaskier.”

Jaskier sat.

The foam tingled pleasantly across his face and neck. It smelled of winter pine and spring water, mingled with the scent of Geralt as he leaned close to brush it into the grain of Jaskier’s skin.

“What will you bargain for us to leave?” Geralt asked as he ran the razor across the whetstone and wiped it on the rag. 

Jaskier shrugged. “Whatever is reasonable.”

“You don’t have a plan?”

“Never in my life,” he said with forced cheer. “It’s worked out well thus far.”

“What did you bargain last time?” Geralt pushed his chin back, exposing his throat to the sharp edge of the blade. It scraped slowly up his skin, catching lightly at the creases. 

Jaskier closed his eyes and relished the swish of the razor in the rinse water and the sensation of Geralt’s heated skin against his own. It felt like he was lost at sea. He clung to the edge of his seat, fighting to keep his breathing steady.

“Magic,” he answered at last. “I bargained magic for my freedom.”

The razor scraped up his neck once more. He heard Geralt swish it in the rinse water, wipe the length of the blade slowly on the rag, and bring it back to scrape another line.

“You never mentioned magic.”

“I don’t like to use it.”

Another scrape. Another rinse. Geralt tilted his head slightly, angling the line of his jaw to catch the curve. “Is that what the tally marks count?”

“Yes.”

“You bargained ninety-nine spells for your freedom?”

“One hundred,” Jaskier corrected. “The last tally mark wasn’t exactly my priority when I left. Remind me to put it in before we go, it’ll bother me otherwise.”

“One hundred spells,” Geralt repeated. Jaskier imagined that, if he opened his eyes, Geralt would have the little crease between his brows that always developed during complex hunts. He wouldn’t be frowning, but the lines around his nose and mouth would be deep in thought.

Jaskier shivered. “Souls,” he whispered at last. “My magic is - I can recall souls.”

“Necromancy?”

“No.” Jaskier had read on necromantic arts extensively at Oxenfurt. The practice of returning a soul to the decaying body it had once inhabited held little resemblance to his own skills. Necromancers did not bring the dead to life, they merely created a bleak and temporary facsimile. “I-- Sor’ca was a stillborn. Although I didn’t have my-- it’s complicated.”

Geralt’s hands froze. One was cupping Jaskier’s freshly shaved cheek, stretching the skin with his thumb. The other held the razor poised to pull down his chin.

“The dead cannot live again,” he said slowly. “They may be given voice, or movement, perhaps even free will if the necromancer is so inclined. They may not live and grow.”

Jaskier leaned into his hand, urging him to continue. When the razor scraped the last of his hair away, he stood and rinsed the foam from his skin. His body felt too small for him.

When his hands and cheeks were dry, he turned to face Geralt. The Witcher watched him patiently, something Jaskier could not read in the shadow of his gaze.

“Do you remember why we pursued Baba Yaga, originally?”

Geralt crossed his arms and shifted his weight. “She was stealing children.”

“No, that was the witch’s excuse,” Jaskier corrected patiently. “What was the real reason?”

After some thought, Geralt sighed. “A set of scales. To influence the balance.”

“Total bullshit,” Jaskier agreed. “But with the seeds of truth. Raising the dead is an old magic. Rare. It doesn’t-- it changes you.”

“You bargained for our lives.” The words were little more than a breath. Geralt fell back against the wall, staring at Jaskier in disbelief. “We were truly dead?”

“Yes.” He swallowed thickly, trying to keep from remembering how Geralt’s limbs had stiffened in death. “I sang you back to life, but she could have done it just as easily.”

“Then, your Name--”

“In exchange for our freedom.” Jaskier shuddered. “Your freedom,” he corrected.

“Jaskier,” Geralt began, he trailed off helplessly.

Jaskier winced. “Don’t thank me,” he ordered. “I’m not doing this to foster debt. I get you into as many messes as I get you out of.”

Geralt flinched and turned away. His jaw worked for a moment, as though he were tasting the flavor of his words before he spoke.

“Anyway,” Jaskier cut in quickly, “We need to go. The gong has rung, tardiness is inevitable but hardly a good first impression. If we hurry we can minimize the damage.”

Geralt followed him back into the chaos of the main room. Jaskier oriented himself to Geralt’s presence as they walked. Every particle of him felt electrically aware of the Witcher’s proximity. 

They left Jaskier’s chambers in a tangle of elbows and laughter, giddy with the relief of their morning escape and the anticipation of a feast.

Sor’ca looped her arm through Jaskier’s and rested her head on his shoulder as they walked. Geralt followed at his heels, familiar and steady. Between them, Jaskier smiled and was - for a brief moment - utterly content.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *bondsmen/bondswomen: this is a concept from Spinning Silver that is hopefully mostly understandable through context. Bondsmen are created by a person of higher status offering a bond or debt to a person of lower status. If they accept, their fates are tied to their bond holder. They, their children, and their children's children will be raised to one step below their lord in status. They are sworn to service, as are their children, but their grandchildren only inherit the status - not the debt. It's not something done lightly.
> 
> Aine means 'light' or 'enlightened' in Elder
> 
> Thank you all so much for sticking with me! The response to the last chapter was utterly overwhelming :') If I don't respond to all the comments, please forgive me. They are all read and I treasure every single one of them.


	15. Bound and Bartered

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “If I set their price at three hundred Staryk souls?”
> 
> Jaskier closed his eyes. The Staryk Lord’s words fell upon his shoulders like a yoke.
> 
> Three hundred souls would keep him from the sunlight for years beyond count. He would return to a world that was utterly alien to him. Perhaps he would not return at all.
> 
> His answer caught in his throat, choking him.

Word of their arrival and subsequent welcome to the mountain must have spread faster than Jaskier had anticipated. The Court was packed from wall to wall with Staryk nobles, clad in the palest shades of delicate off-white. 

Jaskier tapped the strap of his lute - Filavandrel’s lute, since his childhood instrument was still in Sor’ca’s possession - with nerveless fingers. The Staryk watched him, parting when he moved to approach the dais. 

They were glaciers, cold and distant, even as they devoured him with starving eyes.

“Say nothing,” he hissed to Yennefer and Geralt, “it would be an insult. He won’t address you, he’ll address the cub.”

Geralt’s brow wrinkled in displeasure, but he kept his mouth pinched shut. Yennefer, drinking in the Court as hungrily as they watched her, did not deign to give a response.

Aine and Sor’ca melted into the crowd as they reached the foot of the dais.

“My Lord,” Jaskier called, projecting his voice so that everyone in the hall could hear. “It is my pleasure to formally announce the Princess of Cintra, of the sunlit realms, and her bondsmen. They seek a night’s sanctuary, at my behest, from a mortal peril dogging at our heels.”

The Staryk Lord’s gaze remained on Jaskier for long moments, boring into the top of his head where it bent in obeisance. A drop of sweat gathered at the curve of Jaskier’s lip. He licked it away, hoping that no one could see the tension in his shoulders.

At last the Lord spoke. “Be welcome, mortal Princess, guest of our bard. No peril here shall harm you.”

“I am glad to see the wonders of your Winter Court, Lord.” Ciri said with a deep curtsy, certainly deeper than she would give to a mortal king. “Not even your bard could do it justice.”

He nodded regally. Jaskier straightened and caught Geralt’s eyes, tilting his chin slightly. Geralt read his look easily enough and pinched the backs of Ciri and Yennefer’s dresses. At his guiding touch, they backed away from the dais and into Sor’ca and Aine’s waiting arms. Jaskier remained at the Staryk Lord’s feet.

The Lord looked down at him with cold, glittering amusement. “You wish to bargain, bard?”

“First, my Lord, I thought to play.” Jaskier swung the lute around into the cradle of his arms with the ease of practice. “I’ve crafted several song cycles since our last parting.”

The Staryk Lord sat back and waved absently. “Play your music, then. Make merry in your homecoming.”

Jaskier bowed again and turned, his fingers twisted to press the opening chords of  _ The Ballad of Hochebuz.  _ He had not intended that ballad to join with his White Wolf saga when he originally wrote it, but if he pitched it up half an octave - yes, like that - it would transition beautifully into the  _ Song of the White Wolf.  _

Perhaps Geralt had not been bound to Ciri’s family when Calanthe won that battle, but what better way to set the tone of their presence here? 

Jaskier closed his eyes as he sang and wondered if it would be wise to perform the song he’d written to immortalize Pavetta and Duny’s betrothal. Likely not. Better to avoid any mention of Ciri’s strange magic.

Dinner was laid out halfway through  _ Toss a Coin _ , and Jaskier set aside his lute after the final crescendo to fill his plate. As he approached his motley group, navigating by the dark shine of Yennefer’s hair, a figure stood from the table.

A recognizable figure.

Jaskier’s plate hit the floor with a clatter like a second supper gong. He barely noticed. By the time silence had fallen again, he was already in Nauczyciel’s embrace.

Thin arms clasped him to Nauczyciel’s narrow chest and Jaskier buried his face in the crook of the Staryk’s neck. Winter pine, and snow, and open sky filled his nose. He had not realized how familiar that scent had become until he was returned to it.

“I summoned the road,” he whispered into Nauczyciel’s skin. “I came back. I came home.”

Nauczyciel pressed chilled lips to his hair, damp with the sweat of his performance. “Julian,” he breathed so softly that even Jaskier, pressed close, felt the shape of the word more than he heard it.

Tears sprang to Jaskier’s eyes. After a moment, he gave into the impulse and allowed them to fall, hot and stinging with salt, upon Nauczyciel’s shoulder. His Name had not sounded so when Baba Yaga used it. 

“Julian,” Nauczyciel whispered again. “How you have grown.”

Jaskier pulled back, wiping his eyes and chuckling wetly. “I said the same when I saw Sor’ca,” he confessed. “I do not think that I have aged at all.”

“Not that our eyes can perceive,” Nauczyciel allowed. His voice creaked as he ran trembling fingers from the top of Jaskier’s head down to the calluses of his fingers. “But you have grown all the same. How blessed we are to see it.”

“Much has happened since I left. You have met my companions?”

“They have shared their stories of you,” Nauczyciel told him. “You have done well for yourself among your own people.”

Jaskier leaned forward again, pushing back inside the safety of Nauczyciel’s arms to hide his face in cowardice. “I wished I had not left, sometimes. I wished-- it was simpler here.”

“You were never meant for simple things, Feainnewedd,” Nauczyciel chuckled, holding him close before easing him back once more. “Come, share my plate.”

Jaskier followed his guiding hand and took the seat between Sor’ca and Nauczyciel. Ciri sat on Sor’ca’s other side with Yennefer, and Geralt perched on the bench across from Jaskier. Tension thrummed in every line of him.

Beneath the table, Jaskier extended his foot to kick lightly at Geralt’s boot. He summoned a smile, forcibly brushing aside the lingering vulnerability of his reunion even while he leaned subtly into Nauczyciel’s solid edges. He was a performer. Concealing his emotions was old hat. 

“Would you relax? With a puss like that, you’ll have people thinking that you don’t want to be here.”

“Hmm,” Geralt growled, picking at the winter carrots on his plate.

Jaskier interpreted this as:  _ I do not, in fact, want to be here. Every moment surrounded by the Fae makes me want to crawl out of my skin, and your comfort in this environment is equally unnerving. Though I will not put Ciri or Yennefer in danger by expressing my displeasure, rest assured that I take no joy in our continued presence in this place. _

Or something like that.

Sor’ca leaned against him, tucking her head against his shoulder. Nauczyciel divided the contents of his plate, pushing the choicest pieces toward Jaskier insistently. Jaskier plucked a slice of salted hare from the tines of the fork and hummed a few lines from  _ Her Sweet Kiss _ as he chewed.

“Don’t tell me you’ll be singing that next, Jaskier,” Yennefer said, leaning around Ciri to glare at him.

He grinned back. “You didn’t like it?”

“Certainly not for this occasion.”

“Relax, Witch. I can, in fact, read a room. Something a little less maudlin to transition into the bargain.”

Nauczyciel pushed a carrot into Jaskier’s questing fingers and sighed. “Wiser to wait for negotiation,” he counseled gravely. “To bargain for exit so soon after your arrival will seem insulting.”

“We can’t afford to slip out of time,” Jaskier said. He accepted the carrot from Nauczyciel and swapped it for a bite of venison from Sor’ca’s plate before she could protest. “The Witcher’s folk expect them before the snows block the mountain pass.”

“Expect us,” Geralt corrected. He met Jaskier’s eyes across the table. “Unless you mean to stay.”

Jaskier’s voice caught in his throat. Helplessly, he offered a shrug.

_ I did not think you would want me to come, _ he thought, but was not brave enough to say. 

“You cannot mean to leave immediately?” Sor’ca asked with some alarm. “We have barely had a chance to speak! I wish to show you the stables and introduce you to the Keeper of the Beasts.”

Jaskier nudged her shoulder fondly. “We will have time for that. And the road is open to me now. I should be able to return.”

“Or you could visit us,” Ciri added hopefully. “Right?”

Aine choked, reaching blindly for her water as she coughed. Geralt helpfully nudged it closer to her.

Nauczyciel inclined his head to Ciri with solemn attention that had the girl straightening in her seat. “It is no longer safe for Staryk to wander in the sunlit lands as we once did,” he said. “Our Lord does not lightly summon forth his road.”

“You would be welcome in Cintra,” Ciri declared. As the words left her lips, she wilted, the memory of her fallen country catching up to her enthusiasm. “Someday.”

“Cintra is too far south, my dear,” Jaskier told her, hoping to gloss over the darkness of Nilfgaard and the danger of Staryk raids. Surely they could steal a few hours of peace from the grief of war. “But I’m sure that something can be arranged.”

“What do you intend to bargain?” Nauczyciel asked, changing the subject with a politician’s deft grace.

Jaskier grimaced. “I have earned travel rights on my own merit. As they are my guests, I had hoped to bring them out as I had brought them in.”

“You undervalue yourself,” Aine chided.

Nauczyciel nodded. “Our Lord will not allow you to walk away so freely. A price must be met.”

Jaskier glanced at Geralt and Yennefer. They did not seem afraid, though they wore wariness like a cloak. 

“One hundred Staryk souls for one man’s freedom,” Geralt mused. The tines of his fork screeched against the plate. “How many to release three more?”

This was the exact equation that Jaskier had hoped to avoid. To raise three hundred Staryk souls would take… He would have to send Geralt, Yennefer, and Ciri on without him and enter into bondage as surety for their freedom. 

Jaskier could acknowledge that he was selfish. He had stolen and lied and climbed into far too many marriage beds to plead otherwise. But he was not quite selfish enough to protect his heart at the cost of his friends’ lives.

Not even if the thought of kneeling at Geralt’s grave twisted something dark and sour in his belly.

“It won’t come to that,” he said with faux bravado. “Our Lord wouldn’t put such a price on the freedom of a foreign princess.”

“Perhaps not,” Nauczyciel pushed another carrot toward Jaskier and slapped his hand as it stretched to surreptitiously pilfer spiced apples from Ciri’s plate.

“If it does?” Geralt pressed.

Appetite gone, Jaskier smiled thinly and rose to slip out from between Sor’ca and Nauczyciel. “Relax, my dear Witcher. I shoveled this pile of shit, I will not let you stand in it.” He bent to kiss Sor’ca’s cheek and squeezed Nauczyciel’s shoulder as he returned to the center of the room and readied his lute.

As he idly plucked a wandering scale, he couldn’t help but glance back. Geralt was still watching him. His expression might have been inscrutable to any but those who knew him well. Jaskier was no painter, but he felt he could map the lines of the Witcher’s displeasure from memory alone.

He played quietly, songs that had no lyrics to bog down the quiet conversation as the Staryk Lord and his Court ate their supper. When the Lord sat back, he transitioned quickly into a dancing ditty he’d composed as a young man studying Fae lore at Nauczyciel’s feet.

Some of the younger Staryk leapt up to dance a hand-clasp jig. Sor’ca dragged Ciri to the floor at her side. Though the other children and youths were wary of the mortal girl, their reluctance did not seem to hamper his sister’s enthusiasm. She whirled Ciri through the steps, declining to trade partners even when the circle had to break to accommodate them.

Jaskier improvised three more verses, just to let them spin.

As the final notes faded into echoes Jaskier took a bow to polite applause. The floor cleared slowly; the children lingered in the hopes of another song. Jaskier ached to provide for them, but anxiety soured the notes before he could give them breath. 

He caught Nauczyciel’s eyes and turned to the Staryk Lord, who watched him steadily.

Jaskier settled his lute at his back and wiped sweating palms on his trousers. With faltering steps, he approached the dais once more.

“The years have served you well. Your performance is improved,” the Staryk Lord said magnanimously.

Jaskier swept into a flourishing bow. “I am glad to hear you say so, Lord. It has been an honor to share my music with your Court.”

“So you say.”

“My Lord, I do not wish to sour my homecoming with any thought of departure, but such matters must be considered. The Princess of Cintra and her bondsmen are expected by their kin a sunlit week from now. Long though we may wish to linger in your hospitality, our time is short.”

The Staryk Lord did not lose his look of ease, but there was a sharpness to him now. It shone from the silver crown he bore like starlight. “Though you may have the liberty of the sunlit lands, no such luxuries have been bargained by your guests.”

“As I have brought them in, Lord, so I shall bring them out.”

The Staryk Lord’s brow raised and he glanced over Jaskier’s head to the table of mortals, clustered together in the heart of his Court, who watched them with predatory focus.

In Elder, the Staryk Lord responded, “ _ If I set their cost at one thousand Staryk souls, would you pay the price to set them free, bard?” _

Jaskier shuddered.  _ “Though I treasure my companions, my Lord, would it not cheapen your value of my gifts to barter their passage so much higher than my own?” _

He tilted his head in acknowledgement. Jaskier breathed a shaky sigh, tension easing as he realized that he’d passed the test the Staryk Lord had put before him.

_ “You have finally learned the lessons that your Master taught.” _

_ “Your words are kind.” _

_ “If I set their price at three hundred Staryk souls?” _

Jaskier closed his eyes. The Staryk Lord’s words fell upon his shoulders like a yoke.

Three hundred souls would keep him from the sunlight for years beyond count. He would return to a world that was utterly alien to him. Perhaps he would not return at all. There would be nothing left to welcome him, and experience burned away the naivety that might have led to hope.

Bitter anger scorched his tongue even as acceptance numbed the pain. The memories of freedom - sharp-edged though they may be - would be enough to carry him through the despair of returning to his gilded cage. They would have to be.

His answer caught in his throat, choking him.

_ “My Lord, I ask your leave to speak.” _

Jaskier flinched as Nauczyciel came to stand at his side. The ancient Staryk stood unbowed beneath their Lord’s gaze.

The Staryk Lord gestured for him to continue. The shifting ice of his skin was haunting in the silence.

_ “It has always been the right of fathers to bargain for their sons. Such rights I have not claimed before, but I will do so now.” _

“Nauczyciel--” Jaskier began breathlessly.

Nauczyciel pressed a cool hand to his wrist, staying his objections.  _ “Peace, Feainnewedd. My Lord, I offer three chests of mine own gold to be added to your Winter hold. At this price, allow my son to freely follow his companions and return to the realms in which he was born.” _

_ “Few fathers bargain for the absence of their children,”  _ the Staryk Lord mused.

_ “Few fathers may lay claim to such a son,”  _ Nauczyciel replied quickly.

This seemed to be the correct response. The Staryk Lord sat back and sighed. “The king’s road will guide you to the sunlit realms three days hence. Make merry with your kin, bard.”

Relief rang through him like the resonance of an anvil. Jaskier’s head swam and his knees wavered. He leaned on Nauczyciel’s guiding arm and they returned to their table together.

“What language was that?” Yennefer asked, pushing a goblet of wine toward Jaskier. “It sounded like Elder, but not a dialect I recognized.”

“It is what Elder was before the conjunction of the spheres,” Nauczyciel said.

Jaskier let out a quivering breath. “No wonder none of the Elves would ever speak to me,” he muttered.

“Did you strike a bargain?” Geralt asked, leaning forward. 

“We did,” Jaskier said. He eyed Nauczyciel, torn between gratitude and confusion. “Though I do not understand it.”

“You gave me the obedience of a son, accepted the blessing of a father, and granted me your Name,” Nauczyciel explained. “By our laws, you are my son.”

“I wouldn’t say that I was particularly obedient,” Jaskier protested, flushing with memory of his youthful impetuousness.

“Children rarely are.” Aine’s tone was wry and she spared a wink for Sor’ca, who merely laughed.

Geralt twitched impatiently as though he were batting aside the words he did not have the context to understand. “The bargain?” He asked again.

“Three chests of gold for your passage home,” Jaskier told them. “And I shall travel with you.”

***

They shared two more jugs of wine between the seven of them, though Sor’ca and Ciri’s cups were watered with a heavy hand. When at last the halls began to empty and good cheer gave way to yawns, they rose and walked together through the icy halls to Jaskier’s rooms. 

The goodbyes were brief, with plans to meet again. Three days to spend together seemed at once luxuriously long and far, far too short.

Jaskier mustered enough sobriety to change the bandages on Yennefer’s hands and help comb the braids from Ciri’s hair before allowing them to fall into his bed. Ciri was asleep as soon as the blanket draped across her shoulders. Yennefer reached out to pinch Jaskier’s sleeve as he stood to go.

“I think I know how your story will end,” she whispered with only the slightest slur to her words. 

Jaskier pulled the blankets up to her chin and bent to brush a lock of hair from her forehead. “Hmm. Tell me: should I fear a toad-ish curse when my back is next turned?”

She smiled, slow and sure. “Not from me.”

Her eyes were closed before he could craft a suitably sarcastic response.

Jaskier heaved himself to his feet and divested himself of the too-small silks. His packs with all his beautiful clothes were left in Lettenhove, but servants had brought several changes for Geralt and Yennefer. One of Geralt’s shirts and trousers slung loose around his hips would do for sleep.

Thus clothed, Jaskier began to hunt for spare bedding to lay out on the floor. 

“How long, Jaskier?”

Geralt’s voice was pitched low, barely more than a breath in the dark. Jaskier could not help but shiver at the tone, which so often featured in his imaginings. Though not, he granted, in situations such as this.

“To find bedding?” He answered, deliberately obtuse. “You’d think I would remember where it was; but in honesty, I don’t believe I’ve ever needed spares. Logically they would store it--”

“How long were you here before you paid the price for freedom?” There was no impatience in Geralt’s tone. He spoke as though he did not hear Jaskier’s attempts to dodge the subject.

Perhaps it was the wine, the darkness, or simply the fact that Geralt bothered to ask. Whatever the reason, Jaskier could not muster a deflection. It was an old wound. Painful, even now, but the scab no longer bled.

“I did not count the years that passed for me.” Jaskier found the spare blankets at last and threw them to Geralt in a bundle. The Witcher caught them easily and set them aside, eyes never leaving Jaskier. It was too dark to see him fully, but Jaskier could feel the pressure of his gaze. “I did not learn until the Staryk Lord returned me home that I had missed ten times the lifetime of a mortal man. Or woman,” he added, glancing at the sleeping figures on his bed.

“Then are you still a mortal?” Geralt asked, coming closer.

Jaskier tilted his head up, watching the shifting shadows of the Witcher’s silhouette.

“I am what I have made myself,” he whispered. “Exactly what that is, I can’t precisely say. You tell me, my Witcher. Am I a monster?”

Geralt’s rough palm cupped his cheek and Jaskier leaned into the warmth. Even in the bleakness of the glass mountain, his scarred skin glowed with heat.

“No,” Geralt whispered. “Never that.”

Jaskier’s hand crept up to clasp Geralt’s fingers, clutching at them like a child. Impulsively he twisted his head and brushed a kiss - softer than the feathers of a butterfly’s wing - to the inside of Geralt’s wrist.

In the dark, it seemed as though the breath caught in Geralt’s throat.

“Lay out the blankets, Geralt,” he breathed. Geralt’s Name was honey mead and sugar on his tongue. He wished to chase the flavor to its source, wished to bask in the sweetness of it until it overwhelmed him.

He wished to know what  _ Julian _ would taste like on the Witcher’s lips.

Geralt stepped away to fetch the bedding and Jaskier bowed his head. He was a Staryk noble, and Geralt gave his heart to Yennefer. Whatever kisses he stole in darkness would haunt him in the light. Whatever Names they shared might bind them, but not in any way that Geralt would thank him for.

And yet.

And yet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One chapter left to go! As always, thank you for reading, liking, commenting, and/or subscribing. Your encouragement inspires me to keep this going and I treasure every comment - even if I don't always respond because I'm awful.
> 
> Sorry for the surprise hiatus. All is well, and I'm definitely glad to get back into the swing of things.
> 
> Let me know what you think :)


	16. Something Ends, Something Begins

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Geralt rubbed his face. The muscles in his jaw jumped and twitched with tension. “Fuck. I mean - you just. You know what I mean. You always-It always seems like you know what I mean.”
> 
> “Wish that’d kick in right now,” Jaskier joked weakly.
> 
> He sat with quaking slowness on the edge of his bed. Geralt watched him. There was a wild beauty to him, outlined by the glow of Jaskier’s fireplace. The flames had long since burned down to coal. The light caught in the silver of his hair like a shining halo.

“You’ll come to visit soon?” Aine asked, lingering over Jaskier's collar long after the crease was pulled smooth.

Jaskier caught her fingers and bent to kiss her hands. “If My Lord allows. Nothing else would keep me away.”

“We never got to play together,” Sor’ca mourned. She clutched Jaskier’s childhood lute to her chest, utterly despondent as she watched Geralt load Yennefer’s gear - supplemented with Staryk goods that Jaskier had traded for - onto their horse.

“You shall have to keep the lute, then, so that you can practice while I’m away.”

Sor’ca ducked beneath her mother’s elbow and threw her arms around his waist. The lute, which she still held, bashed against his spine. Jaskier held back his wince and lifted her up, spinning around and around until her sniffles turned to laughter.

When he finally set her down, she pressed a cool kiss to his cheek. “Not goodbye, Feainnewedd,” she whispered. “We must say ‘until we meet again.’”

Jaskier pulled back and wiped the tears from her cheeks. “Until we meet again,” he echoed. His voice cracked on the words, and he cleared his throat self consciously as he released his sister’s shoulders and turned away.

Nauczyciel waited for him, patiently observing his farewells. Jaskier fell into his arms with a sigh.

“I wish that we could write one another,” Jaskier muttered ruefully into Nauczyciel’s shoulder.

“Even if letters could pass between the borders of our realms, I do not believe your nomadic life would make such correspondence easy,” Nauczyciel said.

Jaskier sighed. “No, I suppose not.”

“You will return, and you will share your trials and triumphs regarding the Witch Between.” Nauczyciel pulled back only far enough to extract something from his pocket and press it into Jaskier’s hands. “Build knowledge in Truth, Julian.”

“A bargain--” Jaskier began, clutching the bundle before it could fall.

“A gift.” Nauczyciel shook his head on Jaskier’s protests. “There can be no debt from father to son. I desire that you take it.”

The entrance hall echoed with the clatter of chains and pulleys as the great doors began to open. Jaskier flinched at the sound and glanced back over his shoulder. Geralt, Yennefer, and Ciri had stepped away and now waited near the doors, exchanging farewells with Sor’ca and Aine as the Staryk Lord looked on.

The bundle fit into his pocket easily enough, since Aine had helped to alter his clothing. Jaskier ensured that it was secure and stepped back. His cheeks were hot, and his eyes ached with unshed tears.

“I know it is not your custom, but thank you. For everything, I thank you.”

He squeezed Nauczyciel’s hands and turned to go just as the doors finished their swinging arc and came to rest, fully open, with a boom.

A final kiss to Sor’ca and Aine’s cheeks, then Jaskier stood before the Staryk Lord at the threshold of the mountain. Geralt was a bulwark at his shoulder. Yennefer and Ciri watched them from the safety of horseback.

"The beauty of your mountain has surpassed the limits of my memory, My Lord. Already, I anticipate my return.”

The Staryk Lord inclined his head. “Va fáill, bard. Enjoy the liberty of the sunlit realms, but do not linger on the path tonight. Though Winter may not set its teeth in Staryk hearts, mortals still must fear the cold.”

Jaskier bowed low. “Va fáill, Lord.”

He guided Geralt out with a hand at the Witcher’s back. The silver road stretched out beneath their feet and chimed beneath the horse’s hooves like the ringing of a bell. Behind them, the glass mountain shrank, glimmering in the twilight.

***

When they broke past the trees, Jaskier turned his face to the sun and grinned. A laugh bubbled from deep within his belly and he let it loose into the crisp air. A nearby tree dropped a handful of snow, and a fox darted across a nearby path with a flash of its bushy tail.

Ciri twisted in the saddle to look back at him. “Are you alright?” She called, concern wrinkling her brow.

Three days in comfort with music and good food had eased the lines of fear that had aged her. She looked far more like a child now then she had when their journey began. 

“Alright?” Jaskier asked helplessly. “My sweet Ciri, do you know what we just did? We crossed the realms of the Fae and came away unharmed!  _ Am I alright?  _ I’d dance a jig if I wasn’t knee-deep in a snowbank.”

“We only followed your lead,” Yennefer pointed out. “Which, given your reaction, I’m beginning to question the wisdom of.”

Jaskier waved dismissively and pushed forward, stumbling through obstacles hidden in the snow. His toe caught on a branch and he tipped forward, curses already forming on his lips, but Geralt caught him. The Witcher pulled him up and forward, half-lifting him so that his feet came clear of the snow, and placed him gently in the path that Yennefer’s horse had broken.

“Any sign of Nilfgaard, Yen?” Geralt asked. 

He waited until Jaskier’s feet were steady before he stepped away. Jaskier stayed at his side for a moment, shocked at the ease of Geralt’s touch. When he caught himself leaning into Geralt’s space like a flower to the sun, he forced himself to step away.

He climbed through the snow until he could stroke the horse’s nose, watching Yennefer cast the scrying spell. The horse eyed him judgmentally. Jaskier surreptitiously stuck his tongue out and did his best to pretend he still had dignity.

Yennefer shook her head. “No. No sign of our other mounts, either. I think we’ve moved, but I can’t tell where.”

“Fuck.” Geralt rubbed his face irritably. “Would’ve been nice to get my potions.”

“And my clothes,” Jaskier mourned.

Ciri looked down at him incredulously. “Half these packs are full of clothes!”

“White clothes!” 

“Any chance for a portal?” Geralt asked, ignoring them both.

Jaskier leaned around the horse’s nose to glare at Geralt. As he did, however, something caught his eye.

“Geralt?”

Yennefer spoke over him. “It isn’t safe, not if we don’t know where we are. Even if I portalled us, Fringilla may be able to track the spell. I’m not strong enough to hide us if it came to that.”

“Geralt?” Jaskier called again.

“Alright, we’ll just have to camp and strike out for a town tomorrow. Need to get our bearings. What, Jaskier?” 

Caught off guard as Geralt turned his full, staggering attention on him, Jaskier merely pointed. Geralt turned to follow his finger.

In the distance, barely visible through the snow-plump clouds, loomed a cliffside fortress. A single plume of smoke rose cheerfully from one of the chimneys. Jaskier imagined that the view would be quite stunning in the summer, when the valley was green and bright with life. Even blanketed in white, it was lovely.

“I hope that’s Kaer Morhen and not some other mountain valley stronghold,” Jaskier mused. “I imagined it smaller, if I’m honest.”

Geralt’s shoulders eased as he recognized his home. He glanced back at his companions, all of whom drank in the sight of Kaer Morhen with wonder. “Kind of him,” he said to Jaskier.

“He did say not to linger on the path,” Jaskier said cheerfully. “I’d pass on our gratitude, but it’d be misconstrued. Shall we walk?”

It was hard going. The snow began to fall again in earnest sometime near noon. By the time it was dark, it was snowing too thickly to see the trees on either side of the path. Geralt led them by memory alone, clutching the horse’s bridle and pulling it on with Axii and ruthless determination.

Jaskier was so focused on peering into the distance, trying to gauge how far they’d come, that he nearly ran into Geralt’s back when they stopped at the gate.

Geralt pounded on the door and turned to check on Ciri and Yennefer. They were huddled beneath a pile of furs, shivering together as the wind bit through the cloth to burrow in their bones. 

“Are you well?” Geralt shouted, gripping Jaskier’s shoulder.

For once, Jaskier did not have to pretend to feel cold that did not touch him. He nodded. “Well enough. Can’t you open the gate from the outside?”

“I can, but--”

Before Geralt could finish, the gate creaked and began to open. It moved with the ponderous speed of disuse, and opened only wide enough for the horse to slip through.

Geralt slapped the horses rear and drove it inside. He pulled Jaskier forward with him, supporting him against the violence of the wind and sleet.

Once they were inside the gate began to creak shut. Almost immediately, the howling storm lessened. Yennefer clambered off the horse before anyone could offer her a hand and Geralt released Jaskier to help Ciri down. 

“I’ll get the horse,” a voice said at Jaskier’s elbow. He whirled to face the newcomer with a yelp and nearly slipped.

The Witcher laughed, steadying him. Jaskier caught a glimpse of his face in the shine of the torchlight and offered a strained smile in return. “Sorry, I’m addled. Are you Eskel?”

“Yes, and you must be the Great Bard Jaskier. Introductions later; get inside before you freeze. I’ll see to the horse.”

Jaskier reached out and caught Yennefer’s wrist. She jerked, startled by the contact, but blearily allowed him to guide her. They clung to each other and followed Geralt, who practically carried Ciri up the steps and into the keep. 

The door slammed shut behind them and another Witcher held out his arms in welcome. This man was older, steel gray where Geralt was white, and solid with age. That would make him...

“Vesemir,” Geralt said. He set Ciri on her feet and clasped Vesemir’s forearm. “A bit slow on the gate.”

“Wasn’t expecting visitors in this blizzard,” Vesemir explained. “Lucky we heard you at all. What were you thinking?”

“Long story. Any food left?”

Vesemir eyed the four of them. Jaskier imagined that they looked a sorry sight, huddled together and dripping in the foyer. Though he did not feel the cold as strongly as his companions, the damp silks chafed uncomfortably. Hunger bit like a wolf and weighed down aching limbs. 

The only question was whether he’d be able to eat and change before exhaustion claimed him.

“We can make do. Need to hunt again tomorrow.”

“I’ll help. Is Lambert here?”

Vesemir and Geralt spoke quietly as they led them through the drafty halls to a kitchen. There, the air was doubly warmed by a fireplace and a large, brick oven. Ciri stumbled forward and threw herself before the fire. She held her shaking hands to the flames with blissful peace.

Yennefer joined her. Jaskier followed Geralt, curiosity beating out any vestige of common sense.

“--see Yennefer again. Wasn’t expecting more, though,” Vesemir was saying quietly. He quickly ladled four bowls of stew.

Geralt shrugged. “It’s a long story,” he repeated. “Better to tell it in the morning.”

“Hmm.”

Jaskier couldn’t hold back a bark of laughter. When Vesemir looked up at him in startled askance, he shrugged. “Sorry, I just realized where Geralt picked that up.”

“This is Jaskier,” Geralt said. “Jaskier, Vesemir. He was our teacher here when we were boys.”

Vesemir reached out and shook Jaskier’s hand. His grip was firm and the calluses on his palm spoke to hard and active work. Not retired, then.

“You’re the one that wrote those songs about the White Wolf,” Vesemir said.

It wasn’t a question, but Jaskier nodded anyway. “The one and only! Any feedback? This lout never has anything constructive to say. It’s like pulling teeth to get a story out of him at all, honestly.”

“Only that you’re more than welcome here, bard. Easiest coin I’ve ever made, since people started singing your songs.”

Jaskier sketched a bow and accepted a bowl of stew and a thick slice of bread. The first bite of hot food sent shockwaves through him. He sat heavily on the stool Geralt pushed toward him and tucked in with a will. Vesemir looked on, seemingly used to the effect his cooking had on the unwary.

Yennefer pulled up a seat next to Geralt and leaned around him to claim her own bowl. She eyed Jaskier with horrified amusement as he mopped the bottom of his bowl with the crust of his bread.

“I refuse to resuscitate you if you die of your own stupidity, Jaskier.”

Jaskier smiled up at her around a mouthful of food. She laughed, flicking a crumb at him and digging into her own food with nearly as much enthusiasm.

He popped the last bite in his mouth and sat back with a happy sigh. Ciri slumped at his side, already half-asleep between her second and third bites. The numb fingers of cold were at last retreating and he felt suffused and alive with warmth. His fingers itched for his lute, though the weight of the day pressed on his eyes.

The kitchen door banged open and Eskel came in stomping snow from his boots. Another Witcher - Lambert, by process of elimination - followed at his heels. Jaskier craned his neck to watch them approach.

“Horse is settled. We took your gear up to the spare rooms.” Eskel leaned against the table at Geralt’s side and clapped his shoulder. “Welcome home, brother.”

“It’ll be nice to finally have another hand around the place,” Lambert muttered. In spite of his tone, he smiled when Geralt turned to him.

Geralt scoffed, but his eyes were pleased. “Good to see you both,” he said dryly.

Lambert made a face and turned to Yennefer. “You, I’ve seen. Who’s the kid?”

Once more, Geralt began the abbreviated tale of Ciri’s acquisition. Jaskier wasn’t listening. He was watching Geralt talk, but all he heard echoing in his mind was Lambert’s voice:  _ you, I’ve seen. _

Jaskier hadn’t known that Geralt took Yennefer to Kaer Morhen. Geralt had never mentioned it to him.

_ Why would he? _ Jaskier thought. The numbness returned slowly, but it was more than cold.  _ Don’t be stupid.  _

He reached out to stroke Ciri’s back, blindly searching for something to ground himself. As he moved, the bundle shifted in his pocket. Quite suddenly, and yet with utter inevitability, the day caught up with Jaskier. He shuddered and felt hot tears prick at the corners of his eyes.

“Excuse me,” he called with reasonably convincing good cheer. He had interrupted Geralt and Lambert arguing about some monster or other, they looked up in surprise. “Sorry, very pleased to meet you, Lambert. I’m Jaskier the bard.”

Lambert shook his hand bemusedly. “Er, welcome.”

“Hate to interrupt, gentlemen, but I find I’m well on my way to matching Ciri snore for snore. Mind pointing me in the direction of the rooms? I’ll carry her up.” Jaskier stood and gathered Ciri up to prove his enthusiasm. 

Geralt started to rise, but Yennefer pushed him down. She took one last bite of stew and kicked her stool back. “I’ll take him. You stay here and catch up.”

“I can--” Geralt began.

Yennefer was already walking away. Jaskier followed, glancing back helplessly to shrug at Geralt. The Witcher watched them go, uncertainty in every line on his face. Jaskier looked back until the door swung shut behind him and cut off his view.

They were three flights of stairs up and two halls down before Yennefer spoke. “I was injured in Kaedwen.”

“What?”

“I was injured in Kaedwen. A forktail nest, of all things. Damn fool mistake on my part. Geralt found me. He brought me here because there was nowhere else to go.” She turned and rested her hand on the latch of a door. 

“It’s none of my business,” Jaskier said weakly. 

“He didn’t invite me.”

Ciri snuffled in her sleep. Jaskier watched Yennefer, relieved beyond measure at her words and humiliated that she felt the need to say them.

“We had a fight,” Yennefer continued when Jaskier was silent. “I left after two weeks. Here, this can be Ciri’s room.”

Jaskier edged past Yennefer and lowered Ciri to the bed. Her white-blonde hair was still damp, braided tight against her scalp.

Aine had put those braids in before they left.

“She’ll catch a cold if she sleeps like this,” he murmured.

Yennefer sighed in agreement and followed him in. She extended her hands. A soft, white glow formed around Ciri and seemed to sink into her skin. Brief, soft steam rose from her hair and clothes.

Jaskier pressed a hand to her hair and found it dry and warm, as though she’d been sunning on a hot day. Her face lost some of its pallour and she seemed to sink into the feather mattress. He pulled the quilt up to her chin and dropped a kiss to her cheek before he tiptoed after Yennefer back into the hall.

“Don’t suppose you could use that on me?” He asked hopefully as Yennefer led him to the next room. 

She laughed. “No, but I will heat your bath for you.”

“I’d be insulted if I weren’t so grateful.”

His room had all their saddlebags piled on the bed. Jaskier began sorting through them as Yennefer drew and heated the bath with magic. When the water steamed near the lip of the tub, she stood and stretched. “Remember: sound echoes in these old halls.”

Jaskier snorted. “Fuck you, Yennefer. Come sit and I’ll redo your bandages.”

“No need. I’ve enough in reserve to heal myself now.”

“You didn’t lead with that?”

“There hasn’t been time,” Yennefer said blithely. “Good night, bard.”

“Sleep well, witch.” 

Jaskier waited until the door had shut behind her before slowly pulling the bundle out of his pocket. Steeling himself, he flicked aside the thin muslin that wrapped around it. 

The cloth came away to reveal the burnished leather of a book. Embossed in gold, the cover read  _ Southern Fae: Volume IV _ . Jaskier traced the title, remembering mornings at Nauczyciel’s feet, reading through the old Staryk’s personal collection historical texts. Some had been written by the Fae, others - like this one - authored by mortals who had spent time with them as Jaskier had.

The volumes were priceless by the value of either realm.

Jaskier delicately lifted the cover. There was a single scrap of paper tucked before the cover page. He pulled it towards himself.

In Nauczyciel’s spidery scrawl, it said:  _ Chapter 4 of particular interest. Tread with care. - N _

The tears he had held at bay spilled out. Jaskier crawled into the warmth of his bath still hiccuping sobs and stayed in water up to his chin until his fingers were appallingly wrinkled.

He was asleep before he could pull the covers past his knees.

***

Jaskier woke from a dead sleep to the staccato thud-thud-thud of a fist against his door. He kicked free of the covers and had the bolt unlatched before his eyes were fully open.

“Jaskier?”

Geralt was standing at his door. Geralt was standing at his door, staring at him with a particularly perplexed expression that Jaskier was truly too tired to categorize.

“Yennefer’s the next door down,” he squeaked out around a yawn. “Ciri’s to the left. My left. Your… what time is it?”

“Early,” Geralt admitted. “Can I come in?”

Jaskier stepped aside without processing the request. He scratched his chin blearily as Geralt shut and latched the door. “Is something wrong? Because I think I should notify you that I haven’t woken up yet and--”

“I’m sorry.”

“What for?” Jaskier wracked his brains.  _ At dinner, maybe? _

“I never know how to talk to you, Jaskier.”

“Excuse me?”

His voice felt very small, and the room was suddenly quite large. Jaskier’s head was spinning. He was very much awake, now.

Geralt rubbed his face. The muscles in his jaw jumped and twitched with tension. “Fuck. I mean - you just. You know what I mean. You always-It always seems like you know what I mean.”

“Wish that’d kick in right now,” Jaskier joked weakly.

He sat with quaking slowness on the edge of his bed. Geralt watched him. There was a wild beauty to him, outlined by the glow of Jaskier’s fireplace. The flames had long since burned down to coal. The light caught in the silver of his hair like a shining halo.

Geralt crouched at Jaskier’s knees. “I’m sorry for the mountain. And for everything before. I never--I wasn’t worthy of your friendship, Jas.”

The grief in Geralt’s eyes tore Jaskier to shreds. He was reaching out without thinking, desperate to put right the brokenness in his friend. He leaned forward and caught the nape of Geralt’s neck in a firm hand.

"You don’t get to decide your worth to me,” Jaskier said, somewhere just shy of being firm. His pulse raced, it felt like his heart might fly out of his chest. 

Geralt leaned forward until his head pressed against Jaskier’s knees. “I wish you wouldn’t forgive me so easily,” he said. His voice was gravel. 

Jaskier’s hand trailed up his neck and scratched gently at Geralt’s scalp. “Easily? You trusted me enough to follow me into the realm of the Fae. That pretty soundly proved your friendship.”

“Hmm.”

“Want me to translate that one?” Jaskier teased gently, tugging at Geralt’s hair.

The Witcher grunted again.

Though Geralt couldn’t see him, Jaskier smiled vaguely into the dark. He still felt shaken, like Geralt had spun him around and around and not everything inside had stopped swirling yet, but the panic was fading. 

He cleared his throat and adopted his best White Wolf impression. “Ahem, let’s see. Something like…  _ ‘I am relieved that you have grasped my meaning and we have reached the end of the issue. The tension had begun to drive me mad and the return of peace and order is euphoric. I shall linger here for ten minutes, perhaps more, until my legs begin to cramp.’ _ ”

Geralt snorted.

Jaskier tugged his hair again. “Did I get it?”

“Not quite.”

“Oh, care to offer any corrections?”

“I love you.”

A silver sword through his gut might have been less shocking. Jaskier pulled his hands free and stared down at the back of Geralt’s head in complete bewilderment. “Not the criticism I was expecting.”

Geralt sat up and met his eyes. Jaskier could see his reflection in Geralt’s pupils. They were blown wide, and Jaskier was struggling to rationalize this conversation with himself. His stomach was twisted in knots.

“I don’t know how long it’s been. I only realized it after-- after the Amells.”

“You need to be very clear with me now, please. When you say that you love me, do you mean as a friend? Or a brother, like Eskel and Lambert?”

“No.”

“Like Yennefer?”

Geralt frowned, looking momentarily lost. “Yennefer and I aren’t anything. Not for a long time. Especially now, with Ciri.”

Jaskier’s throat was dry. His tongue felt like sandpaper. “Didn’t really answer my question,” he croaked.

“Fuck,” Gerald muttered. His hand came up and cradled Jaskier’s cheek. Between one blink and the next, Geralt leaned forward.

Jaskier pressed into the kiss. He felt like he would jitter apart, like light might shoot from his fingers and toes and bounce around the room. He felt like the warmth of Geralt against his knees, his chest, his cheek, his lips, might leave ash in his wake.

Geralt sat back on his heels and slowly withdrew his hand. Jaskier dragged his eyes open and touched a shaking finger to his lips.

“Hmm.”

“You’re right, that’s maddening.” Geralt smiled. His shoulders slumped nearly imperceptibly and he rocked back. “Should I apologize now or in the morning?”

Jaskier ignored him soundly. “It’s been thirty years since I won my bargain,” he mused, gazing into the middle distance. “Thirty years. Did you know, I’ve been in love with you for nearly twenty of them?”

It was a beautiful thing: watching hope bloom on a Witcher’s face. Or maybe that particular delight was specific to this Witcher.

“Could never be sure. Thought you might just be friendly,” Geralt whispered, delight wrinkled the corners of his eyes. He eased into Jaskier’s space with skittish eagerness. His eyes danced, watching for any hesitance in his expression. 

“Geralt of Rivia,” Jaskier sighed. His breath fluttered Geralt’s hair, fanning across his face. Jaskier leaned in just a touch closer. “You absolute, monster-addled idiot.”

“Hmm.”

“Kiss me.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Va faill: Farewell in Elder
> 
> That's... a wrap? Wow. What a wild 18 weeks! Thank you everyone so, so much for your feedback, support, and enthusiasm. I loved almost every minute of this project! (I will admit that writing this chapter was a doozy).
> 
> I'm taking a brief break, but already have plans for two follow up series: a companion piece to this story and a sequel that will take up the Baba Yaga Saga (I'm so sorry) from Geralt's perspective. 
> 
> Let me know what you think and take care out there!!


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